Mass Hacks
by dirigibee
Summary: Aid Arwen is a human adventurer. She thought her life was laid out in front of her, dull, predictable; delve into dungeons, find treasure, defeat monsters, become powerful, then suffer an early and ignoble death. She didn't realise that in the depths of the Infinite Dungeon, the chaos of her own world had opened cracks to others.
1. Monsters 1-1

_I'm starting a roguelike/ME cross over, because I find all other fantasy/ME effect crossovers to be ultimately unsatisfying in the way they tend to abandon the fantasy universe and stick to canon events. The crossover category is Nethack, but roguelikes are similar enough that I'm treating them as one universe, so I'll be drawing from the monsters, spells and locations of Nethack and ADOM with some original content to flesh out the use universe, and some deviations from balance rules that don't make sense in a narrative (i.e. forgetting spells the more you use them. healing from any wound by standing still for a few seconds). Despite drawing from several different roguelikes, it's not going to feel like a multi-universe crossover, as content in Nethack and ADOM overlap almost completely with only minor deviations.  
><em>

_Because the wider roguelike universe is a bit spartan and not many people know it anyway, there will be infodumps in the form of book excerpts, sometimes relevant to the chapter and sometimes just background. They're optional, but complimentary. You can also read the Nethack and ADOM manuals for some idea of mechanics to expect.  
><em>

_Let me know what you think of it with reviews. If you've got suggestions for directions that would be awesome, some of this is pre-written but I won't ignore good ideas._

* * *

><p><strong>Monsters 1.1<strong>

Jane sat in the family room, playing with a toy Mako.

"Vrrrr" the Mako ploughed intrepidly over the thick carpet. "Commander Shepard" the girl said with a slight lisp "we got contact!".

The Mako was suddenly confronted by a plastic batarian twice as high as the vehicle.

"Ground team!" Jane shouted, "Engage the monster!"

"Vrrr. Peewwsh". The Mako's mass accelerator turret swivelled to point at the giant batarian and opened fire. The batarian roared and fell to the thick pile carpet, not moving.

"Commander we took him out, he sleeping now."

"Good work ground team." Jane congratulated the Mako. "Get ready for evac. We'll put him in monster prison."

The insensate batarian was dragged onto the back of the Mako, which drove off in the direction of a steel cabinet in the corner of the lounge room. Just as the Mako was reaching its home base Jane heard a loud roar, more real than the situation that had just unfolded on the carpet, coming from somewhere behind and above her. Jane felt giant arms encircling her as she tried to crane her neck around to see her attacker.

"Raargh got you" her father shouted.

"Daddy!" Jane said, smiling as he turned her around. Her father was also smiling. He was very late back from market. Daddy was always late.

"Hi sweetie" he said. "What happened to the batarian?" he asked, looking at the unconscious plastic figurine lying on the back of the toy Mako.

"He was causing a dis'uption" she said matter-of-factly. "He's going to monster prison."

"Monster? Oh honey, Batarians are just people like us. They look different, but they're not monsters."

Jane looked at him skeptically.

"Your mother told me to say your dinner is ready".

"Okay" Jane said, before running through the door that led to the rest of the house.

John Shepard followed her out of the room, down the hallway and into the kitchen which contained the steel and glass table that the family ate their meals at. Their house was small, though not compared to most other proto-settlement homes. The building was mostly made of steel, being made up of several modular pre-fabricated buildings shipped in by the corporation funding the Mindoir colonization. The Shepards had flown in on the first civilian shuttle, getting priority and first pick of housing due to both adults skill as engineers, and because they had a young daughter.

As John walked into the kitchen he saw that Kate had cleared away the food processing equipment and was in the process of stripping down and cleaning the sniper rifle they kept for hunting and emergencies on the kitchen bench.

"You were late again today, I was waiting for this" Kate said, fitting a brand new optical crystal into the sniper rifle. She was keeping her tone light around Jane, but John could tell she was annoyed.

"Sorry hon'" he said. "I got talking to old Tom. He had some crazy story about getting lost in some local cave."

"Tom never leaves the bar John. Since his injury case paid out he never leaves the bar, therefore, you were in the bar, therefore you were drinking."

"It's Saturday, it was hot" John said, waving his hand vaguely in the air. "And actually he does leave the bar. He can't work the mine machinery any more, but he's still working for the company doing mineral prospecting. He uses an omni-scanner to find deposits too small for the orbitals to pick up."

Kate finished re-assembling the rifle and tested the newly fitted optics by pointing the rifle at John and looking down the rifle's sight.

"Next time, call" Kate said, her hands steady on the weapon.

John paled. His wife was frightening sometimes.

"Were there monsters?" Jane asked, her mouth half full of mashed potatoes.

"There were no monsters in the bar honey" John replied, moving around behind Kate to sneak-plant a kiss on her cheek.

"No, in the cave!" Jane said, sound exasperated, drawing the word 'cave' out.

"Oh, yes there were monsters" John said, turning to face her. "Big scary green monsters, with giant teeth and rusty swords."

"You'll give her nightmares, she's monster obsessed enough" Kate reprimanded.

"I won't have nightmares mommy, monsters are cool" Jane said.

"So Tom comes up with stories about green monsters in caves, and you're claiming that he doesn't spend all of his time drunk?" Kate asked, collapsing the sniper rifle and moving to place it in the gun locker.

"He didn't phrase it quite like that" John said. "He said he'd found a local cave that opened out into a corridor, connecting a load of underground rooms, like an underground base. And it was full of these primitive green aliens. He was telling anyone who would listen that the bio-survey team had got it wrong, and that the planet must have native humanoids."

"Bio survey teams don't get things wrong. There's too much at stake, and it still sounds like the ravings of a drunk to me" Kate said.

"Well.. maybe" John conceded. "He couldn't show me where it was on the map anyway, he.. was too drunk."

Kate laughed. "I knew it. I'd believe that he fell asleep in a cave, but not that he found something that an entire team of xenobiologists missed in a cave. The caves around here don't even have EM-reflective minerals."

"I know, but its fun to think about" John said, turning to his daughter and making a scary face. "Right honey?" he asked in his best monster voice.

Jane laughed.

* * *

><p><em>I was born when the moon was in the constellation of the Raven, on the 12<em>_th__ day of the month, which was the 12__th__ day of the year. As such, I am harder to trick by deceptions, messengers will tend to reach me faster, I move more quickly, my companions tend to be more powerful and I have greater perception. _

_Few in my new home credit the night sky as having any influence over terrestrial events, and I am slow to blame them since I have visited several of the stars in this strange firmament myself, in person. But this is a different land, and the constellations here are not the ones of my birth. Perhaps the stars here truly hold no power._

…

_I was born to Mira, a female human. My father was the local guild master, and as such quite wealthy. My family was well known and well regarded in the village, I was neighbour to several boisterous and friendly children. It should have been a recipe for a perfect childhood. Unfortunately, for reasons I have never understood and now will never know, my parents hated me._

_Torture is too strong a word for how they treated me, but they seemed to thoroughly despise me. In their care I found, instead of love and nurture, only cruelty. This culminated in their last act as my guardians. I was apprenticed by my father to a renowned master of my chosen craft. At first I was overjoyed, but I had forgotten that my father had always been a master of the poisoned chalice._

_To my great disappointment my master was a hard, unjust and tyrannic man, embittered by his old age. My training was characterized by long tortuous hours of hard work and suffering. It was with great relief on the day of my 17__th__ birthday, when I graduated from my apprenticeship, a fully trained necromancer.  
><em>

- excerpts from Necrostar - An Autobiography by Aid Arwen.

_Today, spellbooks are no longer the rare and priceless items they were just an age ago. You might even be able to find them at your local merchant (though expect to pay a premium!) The most plentiful source of spellbooks however, both then and now, is within the labyrinthine depths of dungeons. There, guarded by creatures both powerful and mundane you will find spellbooks of all values and varieties. Thankfully most of the inhabiting creatures (not to mention many visiting Warriors) are unable to read books, or indeed cast spells. This presents us with two boons. Firstly, nobody wants to do battle with an ettin who is also able to cast Finger of Death at us! Secondly, the standard dungeon inhabitant sees no reason to collect and hoard spellbooks in the same way that they do other equipment. While a warrior may only expect to find a legendary sword or shield in the possession of a powerful creature (as any creature with hands will prize an enchanted sword), a wizard is as likely to find a spellbook of Acid Ball in the hands of a goblin as a gorgon. This is the first of many reasons why Wizards are superior to Warriors.  
><em>

- excerpt from Spells, Scrolls & Spellbooks by Grundis Blaythaime

_Ah, an orc! Now there's a foe for a novice adventure. Big, green, smells of kobold dung. You'll run into him within the first three or four levels of any dungeon, and sometimes even on the surface, running in packs and looking for easy pickings. They're big, but getting scared would be a mistake. They're no faster than you, and they won't have any fighting form to speak of. Avoid their rusty swords and show them what a real weapon is made of! By sticking it in their belly! It's iron, a real weapon is made of iron. Do this even if you haven't got yourself an iron weapon yet. You better get an iron weapon soon though. What, have you got a death wish? Running around with copper weapons?_

- excerpt from Brutus's Big Bingo Book of Beasts, by Brutus

_The spell of Invisibility is often overlooked, but when used properly extremely useful. For many novice adventurers, invisibility is little except a means to larceny, and many a promising adventurer was cut down while attempting a spectacular heist at the expense of their local merchant. Sadly, their crime of theft is only exceeded by their crime of ignorance! Unlike shopkeepers, many of the more mundane creatures an adventurer will encounter early in their career lack the ability to see the invisible (known henceforth in this book as infravision). To those with the wisdom to make use of it, the spell of invisibility virtually guarantees survival in the early stages of spellcaster's career, as it can be used to escape more or less any losing battle._

- excerpt from Spells, Scrolls & Spellbooks by Grundis Blaythaime

_Caution: Contents of bottle embody essence of change.  
>Do not allow contact with bare skin<br>If ingested seek magical attention immediately  
>Side effects include: Instant &amp; permanent polymorphism, light headedness<br>Keep out of reach of children_

- excerpt from warning label of Potion of Exchange, by AlchCorp

_The Wand of Wishing is unassuming in its appearance. Around 30 centimetres long, made from wood and capped with a metal ring. The exact wood and metal used in its construction vary from region to region and from epoch to epoch. It is suspected that many adventurers pass over the wand without even realising what they have found, leaving it lying in the dungeon, or selling it to an equally clueless shopkeeper. Those lucky few who both manage to find one of these fabled artefacts and realise its worth are figures of legend. Those with the wisdom to properly harness its powers may become heroes, kings, or even gods._

- excerpt from Wands for the Wise by Grundis Blaythaime

* * *

><p>Aid dodged a wild swing, leaning backwards as a bony claw passed just inches in front of her face. The creature's aggressive attack had left it unbalanced, and Aid plunged her skull-handled dagger between its ribs. The blade passed through the empty air that filled the space between the bugbear skeleton's bleached bones, the hilt clacking uselessly against the bare ribcage.<p>

"Damnit!" Aid hissed under her breath.

A second bony, claw-like hand swung at her from her left which she narrowly dodged. She was glad that despite his many failings, her grey elf master had decided to teach her how to dodge. It wasn't a skill normally taught to students of necromancy, but he'd given her a very basic introduction and then used 'training' as an excuse to throw things, plates, cups, bric-a-brac and the like at her whenever his foul mood bubbled over into a desire for actual violence.

She was still only a novice, and the bugbear skeleton was stretching the limits of her skills. Despite being apprentice to a necromancer for seven years, the old man hadn't taught her any useful combat magic. In theory, a mentor was supposed to give their student a few spellbooks on the day of their graduation. That morning Aid had found that she still had the capacity to be disappointed, when she had been unceremoniously kicked out of the tower with only what she was wearing. That was why she'd crept back into the tower very early in the next morning - to raid the laboratory, storeroom and library for the things that were hers by right, and maybe a few other things as well. She should have known that the library, with its collection of valuable books, would have been guarded by an undead minion.

Aid reached a hand back into her backpack, grabbing the wand she'd lifted from the storeroom. It wasn't a very powerful wand, just the most useful one that hadn't been mage locked into a display case. She took a step back while the skeleton was still stumbling from its missed attack and pointed the wand at it. She focused her will and intent on the wand, and a sticky stream of spider web shot from the tip. The jet collided with the skeleton, making it stumble backwards and wrapping it up in strong, sticky cords. The wand now only held six charges.

The skeleton tried taking a lumbering step towards Aid, making up the distance she'd gained to fire the wand. Some of the strands of web snapped, but most held. It wasn't immobilised, but it couldn't move as fast as before. Aid had come here to look through the library, read the titles at her leisure, read the notes on the paper tags which stood out from each book, and take as many useful volumes as she could carry. Now, lacking any way to substantially damage the large skeletal monster, she'd have to be happy with what books she could grab at random.

Aid ran away from the skeleton, towards the farthest bookcase from the door. It was tall, made of a rich dark brown wood and was the only bookcase in the room to be covered, having a pair of wooden doors that closed over the front of the bookcase to protect the books from light and mold. Assuming this case would have the most valuable (and presumably, powerful) spellbooks, she threw open the doors and tossed a few into her pack. Each book weighed about a kilogram, and Aid had only collected five books before the straps of her pack began to dig painfully into her shoulders. Every second that her back was turned to the slowly approaching monster the more danger she was in, so as she threw the last book into her backpack she turned to run for the door as fast as she could.

The bugbear skeleton had gotten close enough to give one final swipe at her as she passed. Too focused to dodge in time, the creature's claw clipped her side, causing her to stifle a yell and clutch at the shallow cut. She reached the door, pulled it open and dashed outside, closing it behind her. She leaned with her back to the door, gasping to regain her breath.

Suddenly the handle of the door shook. Apparently the skeleton had enough rudimentary intelligence to know how to open doors, and it was trying to follow her out into the second floor corridor of the tower. Aid spun around and pointed the wand of webbing she still held in her left hand at the gap between the door and its frame, around where the handle mechanism latched the door closed. She fired the wand, and webbing shot out, filling the gap and forcing its way into the handle mechanism. Five charges left.

Hoping that it would be enough to glue the door closed for a few minutes at least, Aid turned and ran for the stairs that led down to the ground floor. She passed the first floor, rounded the corner and continued down the stairs to the ground floor, where the stairwell emptied out into the ground floor entrance hall. Aid had already taken the precaution of unlocking the tower's front door and leaving it ajar, and now she ran outside and didn't stop to look back or even close the door. She ran from the tower grounds and down the road of the villiage. She didn't stop running until she reached the countryside, several miles away.

It was still dark when Aid reached the outer edge of the Great Northern Steppes, a swath of barren land north of the mountains of Terinyo. It was a lawless land, the home of many outcasts and misfits – people like her old master. The landscape ahead of her now was an expanse of wetlands, lightly dotted with lines and copses of trees that wormed across the swampy flats, following the drier, more solid banks of earth. It was those lines of trees that she would follow tomorrow, finding a safe path through the treacherous swamp.

Beyond the wetlands rose the Terinyo mountain range. It was a tall, majestic range that stretched as far as she could see to the East and West. The green grasslands that swept up gentle slopes just before the mountains terminated in sheer cliffs, giving them an imposing, impassable appearance, but Aid had learned during her studies that there were mountain passes threading through the range. Passes that led to Terinyo valley and the plains and beyond.

Aid was exhausted from her run, and this was probably the last safe place to camp before she entered the dangerous wetlands, where a suitable camp site would be difficult to find even during the day. She pulled her bed roll from her pack and threw it on the flattest piece of turf she could find. Lifting her shirt, Aid winced as the fabric pulled away from her wound from the fight with the skeleton.

The cut wasn't deep. It had bled a fair bit, but it had clotted against her shirt and she judged it would be on its way to closing by morning. She considered applying what little she knew of first aid, but as there was no recent wound to take care of she settled for collapsing on her bed roll, not even bothering to disrobe or put up a tent. She knew that tomorrow she would have to find a way to clean her shirt before the dried blood attracted botflies from the swamp, and she would have to keep an eye on her wound as it healed. She knew that wounds delivered by the undead were particularly prone to infection. It was with these dull practical thoughts swimming through her head that she fell asleep.


	2. Monsters 1-2

**Monsters 1.2**

"Tom called me earlier" John said.

John and his wife Kate were sitting in their workshop at their individual work benches. The two benches were at opposite ends of a rectangular room with dull silver metal walls and dark grey grate floors, which rested on metal pegs jutting out of the real floor of the metal pre-fab. Various tools hung from hooks on the walls, ranging from cargo-strap bandoliers full of omni-gel canisters to gunmetal grey plastic boxes containing weapons and armour mods. John's work bench was covered in electronics tools and omni-tool microframes, and he was manipulating a holographic interface projected from his own omni-tool. At her own work bench, Kate was hunched over a stripped down mass-driver pistol.

"What did he want? Another loan?" Kate asked.

"No, he said Jane tried to interrogate him again" John replied.

"Oh that damned cave again!" Kate guessed.

"Yeah, she's been obsessing over that story on and off for the last few years. Looking for it is her favourite 'adventure'"

"It's not logical, not after Tom managed to get a second survey team down here. I still don't know how he managed that on the strength of a moonshine story" Kate said.

"Well, our princess isn't a completely logical girl" John replied ruefully. "He said that she had a sword".

"Where did she get a sword?" Kate asked. She tried to keep her tone neutral but John noticed she had stopped working and was listening intently.

"He said it looked home made. Like a sharpened shutter slat and an omni-forged handle."

"Well, she is the daughter of two engineers" Kate said, resuming her work, a note of pride in her voice.

"It doesn't make you reconsider her present?" John asked

"No, it reaffirms it. If she's going to be sneaking into the workshop to arm herself then she might as well have something she's not going to cut her arm open with by accident."

"No, just something she might accidentally shoot someone with."

"It's not going to have live rounds John" Kate sighed, rolling her eyes, though John couldn't see that from across the room, facing his omni-tool projection.

John tried to say something in reply, but Kate shushed him. She was at a delicate stage of the construction and needed to concentrate. She lifted the ammo chamber from the pistol and threw it into the parts bin on her left, then using a small pair of pliers she slipped her custom-designed disruptor package into the place where the pistol's ammo chamber usually sat. She closed the pistol's casing using a small holo-tool.

"Here, the world's first non-lethal disruptor pistol" Kate spun the pistol in the air and then tossed it to John as he turned around to look.

"How does it work again?" he asked.

"You know how mass accelerator firearms work in general?"

"Please" John replied, feeling a little insulted. "I'm not a gun specialist but I did graduate from the same school as you. They use a mass effect field to shear off metal flecks from a steel block, then throw them at a few thousand meters per second out of the front of the gun right?"

"Yes, that's more or less correct" she replied. "This one doesn't have a metal block for ammo, instead I reconfigured the mass effect generator to draw in air, compress it, and launch it as a gravimetrically focused ball of plasma. It dissipates too fast on contact to really hurt anyone, but as the plasma dissipates it generates quite an intense electric field, that's why I'm calling it a stun pistol."

"So it'll knock people out?" John asked.

"In theory. We can test it later. I saw some of the local varren equivalents worrying the animals at the Craig farm on my way up from Basel. And we can check the effects on synthetics with one of your drones if you're willing."

Tom nodded. "So is this ready for my work?" he asked.

"Yeah, make sure you only program the nano-fabricator with flash-bangs."

"Kate, I hate to ask, I don't even want to think about it, but what if Jane ever needs something more serious than disruptor ammo and flash-bangs? Sixteen years is old enough to have a real weapon on a frontier world."

"It's not disruptor ammo. It's a completely original non-lethal plasma stun weapon" Kate replied sternly, ignoring the question.

"Kate.. " John pleaded. "The batarian situation is getting tense. They've been rattling their sabres ever since we started moving into the Skylian verge."

"Fine" Kate snapped. "Put whatever schematics you like into it. Just key anything dangerous to the Nouveau Basel alarm signal. That way she won't accidentally blow her legs off while we're not actually under attack." Kate did not look happy with the concession.

John looked at the pistol thoughtfully. Slowly a smile spread across his face. "I've got another idea, since our princess seems to like swords."

* * *

><p><em>Liches. We've all heard of them. One of the greater dead, an unholy abomination, an undead spellcaster as dangerous as any wizard. On top of that they can turn invisible, teleport at will and paralyze with a touch. Some of them can even use their powers of death to make your armour rot and rust away in an instant, while others can regenerate any damage you manage to do to them. For most of you my advice is to run the second you see the floating skeleton bastard coming at you, but for those of you with the balls to fight I recommend being a paladin. Your holy symbol will scare it and your fists of dispel undead will take it down a peg. If you're lucky enough to be near an altar you might even be able to lure the monstrosity over and sacrifice it. We don't all have a god on our side though, for us warriors I recommend a crossbow with bolts of undead slaying and a blessed sword. Also, like with all undead, setting them on fire works wonders.<br>_- excerpt from Brutus's Big Bingo Book of Beasts, by Brutus

_Calm Monster. It is, possibly, the weakest of the mind altering spells a spellcaster may wield. Its typical use is to halt the aggression of a lesser beast, such as a wolf or bear, causing it to slip into a more congenial mood and therefore cease its attacks against the caster. The spell will fail utterly against more powerful, or more intelligent creatures, giving it limited utility outside of wilderness encounters. Even then, an aggressive animal is easily dispatched with even a weak direct damage spell, such as frost bolt. Possibly the only saving grace of Calm Monster its low power requirements, making multiple consecutive castings accessible to novice spellcasters. Multiple castings may indeed prove useful, as a barrage of Calm Monster invocations has been known to permanently sway initially ambivalent creatures to the caster's cause, granting them a loyal companion, though spellcasters may find that they soon outgrow the meagre strength of any companion which can be gained in this way.  
><em>- excerpt from Spells, Scrolls & Spellbooks by Grundis Blaythaime

_Case number: __1__20  
>Date: 20 <em>_of__ Cup, 1018  
>Reporting Officer: Dumbar Lobothew<br>__Incident Type: Robbery  
>Address of Occurrence: Barthreck's Blades, Terinyo<br>Witnesses:  
>Barthreck son of Bolowreck: Store owner, Male, 40, Half-orc<br>John Tuttle: Apprentice, 12, __H__uman  
><em>_Weapons/Objects Used: Dagger/Blade, Wand of Teleportation  
><em>_On 20 of Cup at approximately 12pm, an unidentified male dark elf entered Barthreck's Blades __(__a Terinyo-based sword and dagger merchant__)__ and stole the __merchant's__ entire stock. Witness Barthreck reported "I first got suspicious when he started walking around putting everything in his backpack. When he had everything, instead of paying, he zapped himself with a wand and disappeared". __Officer Lobothew arrived on the scene at 12:30pm and attempted to locate the suspect with a scroll of __monster detection__, but the suspect had either fled the town or was hiding amongst the residents. A subsequent search of nearby homes failed to find him. __The dark elf was described as having white hair, black skin, thin frame, was approximately 150 years old and __around __five feet tall.__  
>-<em> excerpt from police report

* * *

><p>Aid's eyes fluttered open to see the first rays of dawn shining over the low hills that formed the horizon to the East. The faint golden light cast deep, long shadows in front of those hills and along the mountain range to the south. Combined with the general starkness of the steppes and the marsh it created a kind of bleak beauty that Aid hadn't noticed before, never having found the time in her tortuous schedule at the tower to take a walk at dawn or dusk. She had grown up in a small town in the steppes some distance to the north, one small outpost of civilization in the largely barren wilderness, and had made the two day journey to the neighbouring village that her master called home by herself. Other than that, she was poorly travelled, and had few survival skills beyond those every child of the steppes had to learn while growing up. She could start a fire and read a map, she knew how to find fresh water and forage for wild roots, but she knew nothing of trapping, tracking, herbalism or general survival. When it came to wilderness survival, she mostly didn't know what she didn't know, which was a dangerous position to be in.<p>

Aid spent several minutes lying on her bedroll, eyes closed against the dim yet painful glare of the dawn sun. She'd had four hours sleep at most. The hills in the distance meant that sunrise appeared to happen later in the morning here, but it couldn't be much later than 7am by the clock. Aid rubbed her eyes and sat up. An examination of her side showed that the wound had begun to close. An angry red line marked the place where the bugbear skeleton had made contact with her, but there was no dangerous red lines of infection around the wound. She was pleased that it seemed to be closing without any sign of infection, since she hadn't thought to sterilize the cut with supplies from her limited first aid kit in her tired and weak state the previous night. She briefly considered bandaging the cut, but it seemed too minor to waste her small roll of bandages on, and she deemed it unlikely to reopen.

Aid set about using the stiff leather sheath of her skull-handled dagger to dig a shallow pit. Once it was done she lined It with stones and pulled up handfuls of dead grass to drop them into the pit. After a short walk towards the sound of running water she found a small stream, little more than a brook which was winding its way down from the distant hills towards the wetlands below. She filled her water skin and picked up some dead wood from around the ruin of what was once a young tree, perched on the edge of the stream. Apart from the occasional sheltered dip in the landscape, the steppes were kept free of trees by strong winds that frequently scoured the terrain, gradually beating down any plant taller or less flexible than the grasses and heathers that flourished in the area. This tree had endured the winds for longer than most, but at some point a more violent storm than usual had cracked the trunk in some fatal way, and the tree had begun to rot. The fallen wood around it seemed dry and fine to burn though.

Within a few minutes Aid had a cheerful fire going. The lands north of the Terinyo mountains tended to have cool, dry days and bitterly cold nights, and the fire helped push the morning chill out of Aid's body. Aid took out a small, shallow iron skillet from her pack. The metal of the pan was thin so that it would be easy to carry. It wouldn't bear much heat before burning or warping, but it would do for simple cooking. Her master had once been an adventurer, and his storeroom had been filled with useful items that she'd only been able to scratch the surface of in her haste. She lined the small pan with bacon taken from a grease-paper wrapped pack in her bag and propped it over the fire, the edges of the pan resting on the tips of three jagged rocks she'd placed immediately around the fire to form a kind of cooking stand.

As the bacon sizzled, Aid looked through the loot she'd taken from her master's tower. There was the wand of webbing that had already been useful to her. It only had a few charges remaining, but Aid knew a few ways to recharge wands, a scroll of recharging obviously, dipping the wand into a potion of mana would do, even dipping it into some booze would charge it slightly. She also found a ring of conflict, which would cause conflict between creatures around her while she wore it. It wasn't very useful, a few niche tactics aside, but maybe it would be worth a few gold pieces to any merchant she ran into. She tossed the ring back in her pack. She'd also picked up a ring of regeneration, which would allow her wounds to heal more quickly while she wore it. The ring was a mixed blessing though, Aid knew that the ring drew its power from the wearer, speeding their metabolism. She was pretty sure it would double or triple the amount she needed to eat, so it wasn't something she should wear casually, or even for minor wounds like the cut on her side unless she found herself with plentiful food. Starvation was a very real danger out in the wilderness and even in the dungeons, where many of the beasts she'd encounter were edible.

Aid had lifted a few potions from her master's laboratory. A potion of extra healing, and three potions of exchange. The healing potion was standard fare, it would heal substantial wounds, cure poison and disease, it would let her recover from wounds and situations that might otherwise mean certain death – but only once, since the bottle only contained one dose. The potion of exchange was much more useful. Drinking it would permanently polymorph the user into a random creature, while retaining their own thoughts and mind. That was a gamble, Aid knew she was as likely to transform into a grass snake or otter as she was to transform into a fire giant or fyleisch. Many apprentice alchemists went missing shortly after they learned how to make the potion out of the sight of their master, and there were relatively few tales of alchemists becoming powerful through possessing a powerful form. The potion could also transform any creature they were thrown at in a similar way, useful for transforming powerful or dangerous enemies into something more manageable. The final use for the potion of exchange was item transformation, in that it would transform any item dipped into it into another item of the same class. There were even stories of adventurers dipping mundane wands into potions of exchange and pulling out wands of wishing, though the chance of that happening was vanishingly small, and dipping anything would use up the potion.

Aid turned to the small pile of scrolls she'd stolen from the storeroom and began to leaf through them. Her visit to the tower's store room had been almost as frantic as her raid on the library. The store room hadn't been guarded, but she'd had a lot of things to collect and she had wanted to finish her raid as quickly as possible. Compared to vital supplies like food, camping and first aid equipment, items like scrolls, rings and amulets had been a luxury. Nevertheless she had taken the time to throw a few of each class into her pack haphazardly. Among the scrolls she'd grabbed were a scroll of enchant armour, which would grant a permanent blessing to whatever she was wearing, making enemies less likely to hit her and making the item absorb more of the damage from blows. She briefly considered using the scroll on her worn black robe, before deciding it was a waste. One of the things she was looking forward to was using wealth gained while dungeoneering to buy some new, potentially prettier robes. In her imagination she was spinning, a deep-black velvet robe with a silver skull emblem across the back spinning around her. The ones she wore now were made of recycled curtains. The second and third scrolls in the pile were scrolls of identify and greater identify. Fairly useful, the scroll of identify would reveal the name and basic properties of one or more unidentified items she was carrying (depending on whether it was blessed or not) and greater identify would reveal all of the secrets of a single item to her. She had no use for either right now, everything she'd taken from the tower was clearly labelled.

When Aid looked at the last scroll she paled, rolled the scroll up tightly, folded the roll in half and stuffed the folded roll into a spare sock in her pack, hiding it as best she could short of burying it. Trust her master to have a scroll of genocide of all things. One of the most powerful and despicable scrolls in existence, once read it would empower the reader to wipe out a species of her choice. The only thought more frightening than having such a scroll in her pack was the thought of it being in her master's possession. Some species and creature types had been warded against magical genocide. All humans were safe for a start, whatever dark scribe had invented the scroll presumably wouldn't have done so before that safeguard was in place. The same protection had also been extended to golems and other constructs. The energies of the earth itself protected elementals from genocide, and the races of angels and demons had their own protections. It was still a disturbingly powerful and vile ability to hold.

If she wanted, Aid could wipe out all Orcs everywhere, but was it right to do so? Orcs were a net force for evil in the world to be sure, but that race must have innocents of its own. What about something unambiguous like mind flayers, who could object to that? Yet Aid was still unconvinced it could possibly right to remove an entire race from the world, every individual, forever. She might have been tempted to wipe out one of the more unpleasant types of undead, Liches perhaps, if she didn't expect to be able to command them herself one day. She found some undead creatures abhorrent, but like all necromancers she had picked up a hunger for the power they offered by osmosis through her training. There was also the slim possibility that the scroll was cursed. Cursed scrolls tended to have the opposite, or harmful version of its normal effect. Reading a cursed scroll of genocide would summon an individual from the chosen species. Aid certainly didn't want to accidentally summon an unbound lich. She tried to forget about the scroll, and hoped she would never be tempted to use it, even to save her own life.

Her hands still shaking slightly, Aid pulled out the spellbooks she'd taken from the library early that morning. A quick inventory showed her that she'd made a mistake in thinking that the covered bookcase held the more valuable books. She had a fairly random cross section of books. She'd managed to grab three moderately useful spellbooks – frost bolt, knock and teleport (very useful, if she ever attained the ability to control where she would 'land'), and two fairly useless spellbooks of calm monster and turn undead. Aid took a moment to ponder the irony of her master having a copy of turn undead, but decided it wasn't that unusual considering the frequent jockeying for power that happened between rival necromancers.

Her bacon was crisping up nicely, so Aid pulled a fork out of her cooking kit and sat next to the fire to eat straight out of the pan. She was also glad of the closeness of the fire, as the rising sun still hadn't banished the last of the morning cold. As she ate, she leafed through the spellbook of frost bolt on the ground to her left, taking care not to smudge the pages with bacon grease, though that was a little unnecessary. Magical tomes were invariably warded against dirt and grime, and nothing short of fire or acid would render them illegible. The spell of frost bolt was simple and Aid learnt it quickly, she had good literacy skills and fair concentration so she would have no problems casting the spell. Frost bolt was actually one of the standard spells usually given to necromancers on their graduation. This book had been hers by right, even if the others weren't. Aid tested the spell by firing a frost bolt at a nearby clump of grass, pointing the index finger of her left hand at the clump and muttering the incantation. She saw a narrow white beam lance out of the finger she was pointing at the clump. There was no visible change to the grass, but when Aid stood and walked over to investigate, she found the blades of grass brittle, and covered in frost. They were frozen solid. From her new position Aid could see the dead tree she'd taken firewood from earlier, a little way off by the stream. She pointed her finger at the tree and began to cast frost bolt again, but stopped when she felt a warning twinge. Her last spell had drained more than half of her power pool. To force another casting before she had recovered would probably hurt her.

After cleaning away her cooking equipment, washing the pan out in the nearby brook, Aid continued to learn and improve her knowledge of each of the spellbooks she'd taken. A part of her was warning that lingering so close to the her master's tower so soon after stealing from him was dangerous, but after seven years of barren apprenticeship the spellbooks were irresistible. She had little trouble learning each spell, the most difficult book had been the spellbook of teleport, which she had suffered some magical feedback while trying to learn, forcibly reporting her a few hundred meters away. But, after walking back she resumed learning the spell, and had eventually mastered it. Although she had managed to learn the teleport spell, it needed about half again as much power as she currently had, even at her maximum strength. As she exercised herself as a spellcaster her power pool would increase, but until then she wouldn't be able to cast teleport, or any powerful spell without hurting herself.

Aid looked up as she finished the last of the spellbooks and found, to her dismay, that the sun now hung low in the sky to the West. It must have been about 5pm by the clock. Aid had spent, or rather wasted, the entire day reading and re-reading spell books. This represented a day of wasted rations, on top of the time it cost her. Aid hurriedly packed up her bedroll and kicked apart the remains of her fire. After sweeping the embers and soot out of her fire pit with her boot, she expanded the hole a little with her dagger's sheath and dropped the books into the hole. She'd committed them all to memory, and collectively they were pretty heavy. She filled in the hole and left the sharp stones that had become her makeshift cooking stand around the now buried books to act as a marker, shouldered her pack and walked off towards the closest line of trees that ran into the swamp. She was determined to make up some time before the sun set, even if it meant she wouldn't be able to find a suitable camp site for the night, she'd just sleep against a tree if necessary.

Aid had been walking for an hour by the time she reached the first trees that dotted the outer edge of the wetlands. She had been moving gently downhill since almost as soon as she left her makeshift camp, and the crest of the slope behind her provided the wet valley ahead with some shelter from the scouring winds, allowing trees and tall plants to grow more easily. She was passing into a narrow band of woodland that snaked towards the mountain range. The sunlight, already limited by the late hour, was choked off almost completely between the trees. The canopy above her wasn't that high, this species of tree only grew to perhaps a dozen meters tall, but the trunks were fairly thick and densely spaced. She didn't feel safe continuing to walk with such limited light, and threw her pack into a flat-bottomed V-shaped space formed by two tree roots. It seemed like as comfortable a place as any to set down for the night.

That night, as Aid toasted slices of dense, dark bread over the fire she heard the crack of breaking twigs and the rustle of the kind of rotten leaf mulch that can still be found littering the ground at the end of winter. The sounds were coming from somewhere in the woods to the North. Aid tried to peer into the darkness between the trees, but she couldn't see much beyond the ring of light cast from her fire. Taking the clumps of earth she'd dug out to make her fire pit, Aid dropped them on the small camp fire, putting it out amid gouts of grey smoke. The camp was cast into darkness, and Aid stared out in the direction she'd heard the sounds. As her eyes adapted to the blackness between the trees Aid saw faint red lights appear. As they approached – because they were getting closer, Aid realised – each light resolved into two red points, each pair close together and moving as one. Aid recognized them immediately; the glowing eyes of the dead.


	3. Monsters 1-3

_I don't want the timeline to be confusing, but time runs faster in the ME universe than the Roguelike one. About a week passes in the MEU for every day in RLU. It's a real world/narnia type deal. We'll follow the stories of both characters until they meet, and they'll be running in sync in the MEU from then onwards. _

* * *

><p><strong>Monsters 1.3<strong>

Aid's eyes scanned the darkness in panic. As she stared at the approaching undead she heard rustling at her feet. She looked down and saw that the ground was crawling with spiders, centipedes and other small creatures. They were all moving past her, trying to get away from the approaching monsters. The undead were still about a hundred meters away. Aid still had time to try and think of a plan. Going hand to hand with the creatures was probably a bad idea. If she had a quarterstaff or even a sword she might have a chance, but her dagger wouldn't be much use against a skeleton or zombie. After her fight with just one bugbear skeleton back in the tower Aid held no illusions about her combat prowess.

Aid did a quick mental inventory of her assets. The potion of extra healing would be useful if she was badly hurt, but only if she managed to get away. If she drank it during the fight she would just be buying herself a little time. Of the spells she knew, she could only cast frost bolt twice before she exhausted her available power, the same was true for turn undead, and the two spells did comparable amounts of damage. She could cast calm monster three or four times in a row, but a quick check of the figures in the darkness beyond showed her at least ten opponents shambling through the trees, four ambivalent skeletons or zombies would not change the outcome of the fight. Calm monster could go further, and force an already neutral creature into loyalty if cast multiple times, but the approaching undead were distinctly hostile, and over-casting the spell on one of them would do nothing more than calm it. Her most potent tools were the three potions of exchange and the scroll of genocide. If the undead were all of a type she could wipe out that type of creature, quite a drastic and irresponsible move, and it might not even be an option if there were mixed types in the group, or worse – if her master had chosen to lead the group himself.

Aid checked the approaching group again, they were only about 40 metres away. They shouldn't have been able to make up that much distance in the short time Aid had been thinking. She paled in the darkness, the creatures must be ghuls – faster than skeletons or zombies, and with a paralyzing touch. She turned her attention back to planning with greater urgency. Aid pulled one of the potions of exchange from her pack. She could drink the potion, and possibly transform into something that could win the upcoming fight, but it was a huge risk. Even though she had three potions, and three chances at assuming a powerful form, if her first try left her without any means to lift or drink from a bottle then she'd be stuck that way. Movement on the ground below her hand caught her eye, just another spider. Aid considered the creature for a moment. As small as they were, spiders were living creatures, and they possessed simple minds. An idea was forming.

Aid grabbed the spider by its thick furry body and held it up in front of her. Pointing her finger, she intoned the incantation for Calm Monster. There was no visible sign of the spell, no ray or bolt of light, but that wasn't surprising. Abstract and mind-altering spells often had no visible component, it was enough that Aid had felt the spell succeed and connect with the spider. Realising she wasn't going to win this battle through combat spells, Aid used up her remaining power pool re-casting the simple spell on the spider to be sure that it had worked. Sure enough, when Aid put the spider back on the ground it was no longer running away from the undead, but striving to move towards them. Aid now had a tiny defender. She grabbed the spider before it could travel very far and held it in the pocket of her robes.

Aid readied the potion of exchange in her free hand, her thumb pressed against the stopper. She was about to push the lid off the bottle when she heard a wet laughing coming from the direction of the undead.

"Aid." The voice was high pitched and gravelly.

Aid turned to speak to her old master. Her heart was thundering in her chest, but she forced her voice into the confident, bored tone she had learned was least likely to provoke him. If she played it cool there was a chance she could get away without even having to fight.

"Turias. I'm surprised your withered bones didn't crumble, walking this far" Aid said.

"I thought.." Turias spat "that you would be a little more contrite Aid. If you live through the night it will be by my mercy."

"You mean you wouldn't let me go for old time's sake?" Aid asked, popping the cork from the potion in her hand.

"Old times?" Turias laughed again. "You mean, the old times where you used to fail the simplest task, ruin the most straightforward potion, botch the most rudimentary embalming? I regret everything I ever gave you, what a waste of my time."

"Your memory must be as rotten as your breath, you old quasit" Aid said, her growing voice louder with genuine indignation. "I've been doing all of your work for years. I'm surprised you can even feed yourself now I've gone".

"Not _all_ my work, Aid, dear. Not _all_ of it. You never did get the hang of raising servants yourself. Look at me, I pulled up an entire graveyard of corpses as ghuls on short notice. Even with all the preparation in the world you've never even managed to raise a single skeleton."

"You never let me gain any experience with the dead" Aid countered. "I think I'll learn enough taking you down to bring one of your – frankly shoddy – ghuls back, to work for me."

Turias smiled. "I don't know exactly what you stole from me, I don't know which spells, but you have such a pitiful pool of power. You're no match for me. No minions, no weapons. Just a small and frightened girl, pretending to be bold."

Could Turias have missed everything else she'd stolen? Aid had always been the one to keep inventories up to date, and manage shopping lists and the like. Was it possible he'd only known that she'd taken spellbooks because the bookcase doors had been left open? He might even have mistaken the webs created by the wand of webbing for the work of natural spiders.

"I didn't take anything" Aid bluffed. "Just the spellbook of Frost Bolt that was my right. You _know_ you should have given it to me, you knew my apprenticeship was over."

Turias looked puzzled for a moment, but quickly suppressed the expression. "Well, I was going to give it to you, pet. But your apprenticeship is far from over. You have so much more to learn, and as you said, I have become so used to your help around the tower."

It was Aid's turn to feel confused. He wasn't here to kill her?

"Now that you're of age, we might find even more duties for you to perform." Turias laughed, a wet, mocking cackle.

"Alright, fine. I'll come back with you" Aid lied. "I have some things to pack up, and your minions are making me nervous. Head back to the tower and I'll catch up, and probably overtake you you old wretch" she said.

Turias reached took a step forward, then reached out to place a finger on Aid's shoulder. He closed his eyes for a second, muttering, as Aid jerked her body away from his hand.

Turias laughed again, mirthlessly this time. "No, pet. I can tell you're lying. Most never bother learning Know Alignment, but I learned it. You aren't going to come willingly." Turias shook his head sadly.

"Take her!" he shouted to the ghuls which had been steadily approaching, and were gathering behind him. At his command they shambled forward at an unnerving speed.

Aid pulled the spider from her pocket and dropped it on the ground as she emptied the potion of change over it in one fluid motion. There was a loud tearing sound, the spider became a black blur that expanded and crept upwards. The undead continued to approach at a swift walk and Turias stared at the transforming spider. When it was about a third of a meter high the dark shape started to sharpen, and finally resolved itself into the outline of a large black bird.

"Caw!"

"A raven?" Aid cried despairingly, backing away as the ghuls began to surround her.

Turias bent his legs slightly, with his hands resting on his thighs supporting his upper body. He began making pained hissing noises. Aid was confused at first, until she realised he was laughing.

"What.. what" he said, trying to gasp lungfulls of air around the words. "What did you expect, a dragon!?" He laughed again, loudly this time, almost buckling over.

"Caw" the raven cried again, flapping uneasily off the ground, and flying towards Turias. The old necromancer looked up in time to see the wings beating in his face, and cried in pain. The raven flapped again and rose into the air, flying at the ghul closest to Turian and clawing at it, dodging the ghul's fast, but clumsy swipes. As it moved away from Turias' face, Aid could see that it had clawed at his forehead. Blood was running down his face into his eyes, temporarily blinding him.

An expression of hope mingled with disappointment in Aid's face. As far as transformations went, this was very underwhelming. When a monster is transformed, it gains the traits and abilities of its new form. She _had_ been hoping for something like a dragon, instead she had a creature which, though loyal, was fairly weak, and was no more intelligent than a normal raven. She couldn't begin to guess what effect having a spider's personality would have on the bird's behaviour. All pets in Ancardia had a deep connection with their owner, so she knew it would at least understand her commands, and her trick overcharging Calm Monster had made it loyal to her, so in theory it should obey them as well.

Aid glanced around to find an escape route, and saw the most obvious path deeper into the woods was blocked by the ghul of a large, black haired man.

"Raven! Attack him!" Aid said, shouting and pointing at the ghul who was blocking her retreat.

The bird landed on the muddy ground to look in her direction, cocked an eye at her for a moment, looked in the direction she had pointed and then took off towards the ghul.

Taking advantage of Turias' blindness Aid ran over to him and planted her foot in his stomach, the weight of her momentum making him groan and double over. He had been trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes, but he moved his hands to clutch his stomach. Aid had been planning to run, hopefully faster than her master and his undead minions could follow, but seeing him prone made her realise she had an opportunity. Moving behind him, Aid drew her skull dagger and tried to decide on his most vulnerable point.

"You're the one who taught me to find my enemy's weaknesses, old man" she said as she brought the dagger down into the back of his neck. She felt the tip of her dagger dig into the bone of his spine and he made a deep noise halfway between a groan and a growl. He was badly wounded, but still alive, he was a tough old goat. The ghuls had drawn close, and were grasping at her, trying to hold and lift her rather than hurt her, following Turias' last order. Aid could feel the cold grip of paralysis slowly crawling down her arms. As Aid brought her dagger up for another strike she saw Turias fumbling with a potion he'd taken from a robe pocket. Aid, assuming it was a potion of healing, wasted no time and brought the dagger down again. In his prone and blind state Aid had no trouble planting blows in critical locations, and in just two blows, in the end more through luck and fluke than through skill, Aid had killed the most powerful adventurer she had ever met. With his death, the ghul's he had created that night first slowed in their attempts to grab Aid, and then stopped completely. She pushed the now limp, vacant undead away from her as she freed herself. The paralyzing cold leaving her arms as she broke contact with the ghuls.

She looked down at the robed body at her feet. "Yet another senseless death" Aid said, reciting the adventurer's death rite over the corpse of her old master. She had known him for years, most of her teenage life. Maybe later she would even grieve, maybe. Looking over to the ghul that had been blocking her escape, she saw the raven continually swooping and clawing at the now catatonic undead. Without their creator's continued will to drive them, they had no purpose. She suspected her master had created these ghuls by drawing from his power pool, rather than by expending his mana. A skilled necromancer could spend their personal power to quickly raise every humanoid corpse in sight as undead, the type of servant created depending on the experience of the necromancer. This had let her master assemble a large force of ghuls quickly, but unlike mana-driven undead which were powered by a permanent sacrifice of the necromancer's magical potency, power-driven undead would quickly run down and revert to lifeless corpses.

Aid's first action was to kneel over the corpse of her ex-master and search him. She found a ring she couldn't identify on his right hand, and she noticed that his robes were of a significantly higher quality than her own, made of rich black velvet with decorative runes inscribed along the hem in silver thread. Aid grimaced slightly at the blood stains down the back of the robe before quickly stripping the corpse and bundling the fine robe into her backpack. She would wash it later. She pushed the ring onto her own finger, theorizing that her master was too experienced to wear something that was in any way detrimental to travel or combat. She also found a heavy pouch of gold coins in his pocket along with his potion, which Aid determined was a potion of healing. She pocketed both herself. With the corpse thoroughly looted Aid brought out her dagger again and began dismembering the body.

Turias had told her about all of the necromancer's abilities. The crowning art of a necromancer was the fabled self-resurrection technique. A supremely experienced necromancer could use their dark arts to transcend death and return to the world of the living when killed, at the cost as becoming incredibly frail on their return. Powerful as he was, Aid was fairly sure that her master was still only an average practitioner, he certainly wasn't one of those legendary necromancers who treated death as a mere inconvenience. Still, with necromancers it was always better to make sure, she reasoned. After scattering her ex-master's pieces, she went from one ghul to the next, needling each one with her dagger until it fell. A ghul took a fair amount of punishment, but they could be brought down with mundane weapons. It was on this circuit around her former master's minions that Aid found a skull-headed staff leaning against a tree just behind where Turias had stood to confront her. Aid remembered it clearly, Turias had carried it often, and occasionally jabbed her with it during her 'dodging practice'. It wasn't anything special, Aid remembered. Just a high quality staff, with a small enchantment to enhance its damage. She took it.

With the remaining undead disposed of, the field and corpses looted, and with her new spider-raven companion contentedly pecking bits of meat from Turias severed arm, Aid retreated back to her bedroll. As she lay there, she found that the thought of returning to her ex-master's tower held no interest for her. She wanted power and adventure, and while there were resources back at the tower – spellbooks, food supplies, she could think of nothing that would help her before she gained some experience of life for herself, and nothing worth the trip back to stock up so soon after leaving. She couldn't yet even cast all of the spells she had stolen. Maybe one day she would return, a powerful necromancer in her own right, and become her master's inheritor. Until then she would walk her own path. Aid slept soundly that night, surrounded by the fragmented corpse of a man she'd known for years and by the remains of ten undead ghuls. A small, wicked smile grew on her face as she dreamed of what might lie ahead.

* * *

><p><em>201.1530 GS<br>I finally found it. The artifact. It's as magnificent as Qian's notes describe. Its structure is elegant, more like a living creature than a machine. The creators must have been incredibly powerful, perhaps the protheans? Something about its strange beauty calls to me, orbiting the planet like a sleeping giant. It WILL yield its secrets to me._

_[djk/ 4'.. …. error. DATA CORRUPTED]_

_330.1530 GS  
>Almost half a year of investigation and the artifact still resists my attempts to study it. My scans cannot penetrate the outer layer. Based on its gravity profile I now believe the artifact to be at least partly hollow, but I have not been able to gain access to the inner chambers. All of the cutting equipment I tried didn't even leave a mark. I'm tempted to try and obtain a mass accelerator cannon, but I'm wary of triggering any automated responses. The outer shell is so pristine I find it hard to believe its defences have degraded.<em>

_49.1531 GS  
>My investigations have still met with no success. I have acquired the services of a batarian scientist named Jella Balak. She claims to have some experience with prothean artifacts as well as AI systems. I can't verify her qualifications without attracting unwanted attention, but in my discussions with her she seems knowledgeable on the subject. She also has the benefit of being wanted for ethics violations in citadel space. People who won't be missed always make for the best employees.<em>

_125.1531 GS  
>Success! Jella finally managed to get some kind of response from the artifact. It is about time too, considering the amount of money she thinks I'm paying her. She claims that one of the sensor ghosts she's been projecting at the artifact triggered a dormant control system to reactivate, but I'm not convinced that she Is responsible, since nothing else she tried ever had any effect. Whatever the cause, the artifact does now seem to be active. We have detected active sensor beams coming from the structure, as well as thermal radiation. Our plan is to attempt to communicate with the artifact's automated systems, and hopefully gain access to its crew areas.<em>

_200.1531 GS  
>We are making good progress with the artifact. We have established a basic communications protocol with the simple AI which seems to be running the automated systems. We can't yet communicate much more than numbers and simple mathematical rules, Jella believes that the AI is trying to establish a common alphabet with us, though I somehow get the impression that the artifact is toying with us. Despite our progress, I feel the stress of the investigation is causing my health to suffer. I have begun experiencing headaches and periods of lost memory. I think that once we gain entrance I will take a much needed break, I need to report back to the Citadel anyway.<em>

_215.1531 GS  
>Earlier tonight I was woken by the sound of whispering, I then discovered what I thought to be a turian woman in my room. I naturally reached for my pistol and fired at her, but the bullet just went right through her! She claimed to be the guardian spirit of Palaven, and that she had an important message for me. I have never been a religious man, but how can I deny the evidence of my own eyes!? She told me that the artifact was not a prothean machine, but was instead a god. The turians have not worshipped gods since ancient times, but if this woman is truly the spirit of Palaven then how can I deny her? She told me that the god had chosen me to be its prophet, and it would be my ruler, my sovereign. I have to think about this, the woman said she would visit me tomorrow night with further proof.<br>_- excerpt from private logs of Saren Arterius

* * *

><p>"Jane, did you kill this?" John asked his daughter, his face set in a stern look of disapproval.<p>

The father and daughter were standing in the family workshop that adjoined their pre-fab house. All of the tools and parts were in their proper place and the room was quiet, but the scene was spoiled by the ugly frown on John Shepard's face. His hand gripped tightly around a data pad which displayed several photographs of a large animal corpse. Jane held her modified pistol by the barrel, which was specially modified to work as a hilt for the straight omni-blade that projected from a point just above the gun's barrel. He'd integrated the re-purposed omni-tool components into the pistol he and his wife had built together for Jane's 16th birthday present, and programmed the longsword schematic into the omni-forge's memory as a whimsical novelty he thought would appeal to her. He'd explicitly tied the production of tech mines and cryo blasts to the colony alarm system, so that they could only be used in a genuine emergency, but he'd left the omni-blade readily available. His reasoning was that it was no more dangerous than the bladed weapons she'd managed to scrape together herself, and would make a cute present.

When he'd given her the weapon four days ago he hadn't expected her to go running around the local cave systems killing wild animals with it. At least, John _hoped_ the animal had been wild. He couldn't imagine the huge, mutated wolf would have made a very good pet, but it must have been imported by someone or other. The animal was overgrown, with overdeveloped musculature and a flatter than usual face, but it was still recognizably a type of wolf. There was no way it could have evolved independently on another planet, even apart from there being no mention of an animal like it on the bio-survey report.

"It attacked me, dad!" Jane said. "It was wild, frothing at the mouth. It had probably only come out of its cave to go and hunt and it found me right there."

John accepted her account readily. His daughter was a little melodramatic at times, but she had grown up to be an honest and sincere young woman, if a little aggressive.

"And you have to idea where it came from?" John said. "It must have come from somewhere, where did you find it?"

"_It _found _me_ around.. " Jane tapped her arm to bring up the map interface of her junior omni-tool. "Here" she said, pointing to an area on a region map surrounded by mountains.

"I.. didn't realise you'd been wandering so far from the colony" her father said.

"It's not far" she said. "Just half a day's walk, I don't even have to camp out when I go out there."

"Okay, well I'm going to forward the location to Sasha Gordon. She's the local biologist, she'll either notify the owner that their menace of a pet has died, or forward it to bio-cartography on the space station. And I'm going to tell her that _you_ killed it. If this turns out to be someone's beloved.. horrific pet then you're going to get the blame."

Jane nodded solemnly.

"I suppose, if it really was a dangerous wild animal, then you did the right thing," John said.

Jane grinned.

"And if it was attacking you, then you're very brave, I'm glad you can take care of yourself" John said, moving to hug his daughter.

* * *

><p>NOUVEAU BASEL BIOLOGY STATION A<br>Necropsy Reporting  
>ID No. 283472<br>Sex: Male  
>Species: UNKNOWN Canine<br>Date of Death: April 15, 2170  
>Pathologist: Sasha Hewett Gordon<br>Mr Shepard called at approximately 7pm, 30 January 2170 with a report of a strange animal his daughter had killed in self defence. He reported it had died by numerous lacerations and stab wounds from a modified omni-blade owned by his daughter.  
>Photos and location of the corpse were provided (see attached).<br>The animal was recovered by an aerial haulage team and taken to the 35F morgue at 10pm that same day.  
>The animal was taken from the 35F morgue and placed on the necropsy table at 8am on 31 January 2170.<br>The animal was large, approximately 5' high at the shoulder, and weighing 611lbs. The animal's fur was dark grey and matted and showed signs of parasite infestation, notably terrestrial fleas of the kind found on imported livestock.  
>Apart from the parasites and cause of death, the animal seemed to have been in good health.<br>The animal's skeleton and musculature is very overdeveloped, hinting at the use of artificial growth factors or genetic engineering. A genetic sample has been taken and is being processed in the orbital facilities.

Comments:  
>The cause of death is clear, and the presence of Terran fleas suggests either an Earth origin, or that the creature was preying on local livestock. The core physiology of the creature is clearly canine, but it's dramatic departure from the standard anatomy suggests heavy modification. Seeing this kind of engineering in a wolf is concerning, what could its purpose be? Is it a weapon? How then did it find its way to our colony?<br>- excerpt from a necropsy report, Nouveua Basel, 2170.


	4. Journeys 2-1

**Journeys 2.1**

"_What are you talking about Brutus! It's your fecking round, you stump" A balding, red-faced gnome shouted at the armoured dwarf sitting next to him._

"_Fine fine!" The dwarf replied, "but how about we make a bit more interesting. How about a wager?"_

"_I'm listening" the gnome replied, his voice quieter now._

"_Okay. If you can guess my least favourite type of undead in three tries, I'll buy the next three rounds, otherwise you get this one" the dwarf said._

"_Alright, but give me a hint. It's one of the fourteen right?"_

"_Yeah, it's one of the types necromancers can make all right. And its one of the lesser dead, I'll give you that for free."_

"_Alright" the gnome thought for a second. "It's got to be Shadows. Hard to see, hard to fight. They drain your very strength, and you're a warrior, you must hate that!"_

"_Nope" the dwarf replied. "The weakening touch is problematic, but there are ways of avoiding it" he said, patting the crossbow leaning against the bar at his feet._

"_Hrm. Right then, it's got to be a corpse fiend!" the gnome said triumphantly. "Its the strongest one of the lesser dead, and if it doesn't claw you to death then you'll die from the sickness."_

"_Nope" the dwarf replied again. "They're strong yeah, and they do cause sickness if they get through your armour" the dwarf pulled on his breastplate so it sat more comfortably on his shoulders. "But they go down eventually, and they're mostly scavengers, if you drop some meat or a creature corpse they'll just leave you alone."_

"_It's got to be ghuls then?" the gnome said, a little uncertainly._

"_Uhgh, why do you say that?" the dwarf asked._

"_Well, they've got the paralyzing touch haven't they" the gnome said. "And they're fast, they can get two, three hits in for every swing you get."_

"_Damn!" the dwarf said. "It is ghuls, but not because they're fast, and not because they can paralyze you with a touch. I hate them the most of any undead, and I'll tell you why" the dwarf said, downing the last dregs of his ale. _

"_Okay. Consider skeletons" he continued, "They're fine. Mindless minions that obey the necromancer who made 'em. Zombies? Creepy, and the fresh ones still look human, but they take time for a necromancer to make, and they don't really talk, they just groan. Ghuls though? They keep the face, and if they died in the right way, even some of the mind of the corpse that they're made from, and an elder necromancer can bring them up at the drop of a hat. No preparation needed. If your party's fighting him, and one of your mates goes down, that necromancer can bring him back up. Not back to life mind you, just as a walking corpse. Still, you get your dead mate trying to be chummy and talk about old times, all while he's trying to bite your guts out. They keep their memories. They're dead, and totally enthralled, but they're what the scholars call 'senti-ent'." The dwarf visibly shuddered. "If you ever get into a team fight with a ghul-happy necromancer, you better make sure anyone who dies, dies messy."_

_A minute had passed in relative silence before the gnome said "Well! I won the bet, but I don't feel like taking advantage of your offer any more" he said._

"_Nah, that's fine" the dwarf said. "Barkeep, six ales!" he wrapped his hand around a bag of silver coins and banged it on the bar._

- overheard in a tavern by anonymous

_The infinite dungeon is a curiosity amongst the dungeons of Ancardia. Even the Caverns of Chaos, the source of the corrupting magical energy which once threatened the entire Kingdom, exists in finite, linear space. The same can not be said of the Infinite Dungeon._

_The ancient records speak of a dungeon in the South East corner of the Draklor valley, built as a monument by the 'forces of law'. It is little wonder then that the influence of the invading chaos energy -always tending towards perversion and corruption- was first noticed in this temple to Order. What is recorded as being a safe and orderly underground temple was transformed over an unknown period of time to be the mockery of space we know it to be today. _

_Every visit to the Infinite Dungeon, indeed every time a visitor traverses the stairs in either direction, they find themselves in a completely different structure. An adventurer on the first level moving down to the second, and then back up, finds none of the rooms they mapped just minutes before. Items they had discarded were gone, creatures they had encountered and let live were no longer to be found. Indeed, the seemingly novel level will have its own as yet unseen items and, on occasion, strange and outlandish creatures of unfamiliar types._

_In the course of research for this book, I have obtained copies of over 1800 maps of various levels in the Infinite Dungeon. Over 900 of them are all supposedly maps of the first level, and yet all 1800 maps are unique! How it can be that one dungeon contains over 1800 different places I know not, though I can postulate theories._

_It is known that the chaotic energies that once plagued our land were intruding through a planar portal. We have numerous other examples of travel between this and other planes of existence. Though most of the known planes are very different to ours, and ruled by elemental forces, could it be that there are yet more similar planes, mortal planes like our own, ruled by the same or similar forces of nature, but different in the details? Could the chaotic intrusion on our land have so warped that one-time temple of law that it became somehow untethered from our own plane? _

_If adventurers who plumbed the depths of the Infinite Dungeon were in fact taking trips to other, nearby mortal planes then this could explain the sheer number of apparently different levels within the dungeon. Indeed, it is almost guaranteed that dungeoneers don't actually physically remain beneath the entrance, as I have calculated the depth of an 1800-level dungeon to be at least 6.3 kilometres deep, which would be intruding upon the still warm volcanic channels we know to be active beneath the Draklor chain. From this we deduce it cannot simply be that visitors are being teleported to random levels within the same structure._

_The nearby-mortal-plane explanation could also explain the odd variation in the types of monster encountered in the dungeon. These diverse and hitherto unknown forms are often dismissed as 'chaos beasts', or 'chaotically warped' specimens of known creatures, but sketches of the beasts obtained during research for this book do not show any of the tell-tale asymmetry and general foulness typical of chaotic corruptions. Take for example the spider-like automatons shown in Fig 1. They are described as being golden in colour, and powered by a mystical stone. They are unlike any magical construct ever devised, yet they are beautiful in their own way, clearly not an expression of chaos. _

_It is my conjecture that earlier attempts at explaining the properties of the Infinite Dungeon, by invoking a godlike being who acts as some form of "random dungeon generator" is insufficient to explain the Infinite Dungeon. This so called generator would need to generate so much information -not just the layout and the present items, but also the minds and histories of sometimes sentient creatures!- that it is far more likely in this researcher's view, that by traversing the Infinite Dungeon adventurers are merely visiting dangerous underground places in other Kingdoms and other planes, and the pool of such places called upon by the chaotic space of the dungeon is so large, that no two visits ever end up in the same place._

- excerpt from Treatise on the Infinite Dungeon, by Vecswain the Traveller

* * *

><p>Aid had been travelling for 12 days before she finally reached the outskirts of Terinyo, her intermediate destination. The trip through the hidden mountain passes had been difficult, but uneventful, with no combat or adventures to speak of. Just the mundane events of everyday life in the wilds. Aid had managed to find enough wild roots and edible leaves to supplement her few provisions, and she had eaten fairly well throughout the trip.<p>

During the chaos crisis of a hundred years earlier, Terinyo had been just a small trading post, home to a few farmers, a food merchant and the occasional traveller and druid. Later, spurred by the call to arms issued by a famous sage, Khelevaster, the town had become the base of operations for untold numbers of adventurers questing against the invading chaos. Once the chaos gate had been closed and the crisis averted, many of the adventurers had settled down in Terinyo. Buoyed by the increased population and the slow dilution of dungeon-wealth into the local economy, the town had grown to become the most prosperous city in the increasingly developed Draklor region, to the point where many began calling the valley it was located in the Terinyo valley.

Spira flapped down from above and landed on Aid's shoulder. The bird had mostly found its own food over the weeks since she'd tamed and created her. Aid had named the raven (a whimsical portmanteau of 'spider' and 'raven') to better instruct it, but she had grown close to the bird in the way people tended to with their pets. The raven had even been useful, using a bird's eye view to help guide her, and spotting the road when she wandered too far away from it while foraging. The bird couldn't really communicate except by cawing, but it could follow simple instructions like 'Find the road and fly back', showing Aid the direction she needed to go by tracing the bird's path backwards. The large black bird was a little heavy to carry on her shoulder though.

"Go, carry your own weight for a while" Aid said to Spira, who took off to circle lazily around the sky above the city.

The city was surrounded a thick stone wall which stood about 5 meters above the ground, and at intervals along the wall guards could be seen nestled between crenellations, on constant watch for the parties of roaming orcs, lizardmen and undead, which where perennial problems this far from mainstream civilization. The city itself was packed with buildings, some built from local timber, others from stone ranging from squat, ground-level buildings to tall thin ones, two or three stories high.

As Aid passed through the northern gate, walking between and underneath the great wall, she drew suspicious glances from the citizens that were dotted throughout the streets. The morning after the fight against the undead she had cleaned the blood from her master's old robe and torn shirt in a shallow pool trapped in the hollow trunk of a dead tree (the cleanest standing water she could find in the local wetlands) and donned both. Now, the rich velvet robe inscribed with silvery runes along the blood red hem singled her out, if not as a necromancer outright, then certainly as a sinister character.

Aid had felt very different on that first morning after the fight against her old master and his minions. The experience of killing him and taking his creatures apart, rather than traumatising her, had felt like something of an exercise in enormous personal growth. She felt better able to find the weaknesses in her opponent after practising that particular skill on her master, she was sure that she was better at dodging than she had been before the encounter, and when she'd woken she had found her power pool had expanded dramatically, enough to cast seven or eight Frost Bolts in a row, and even the Teleport spell two or three times if she dared risk landing in whatever random place it dropped her. It wasn't normal for a novice a few weeks out of her apprenticeship to have gained so much power so fast, but her old master's failure to take her seriously had allowed Aid to defeat a much more powerful opponent, and she had reaped the rewards in terms of experience and confidence.

Aid had spent the intervening weeks honing her already impressive literacy on the empty evenings at her nightly camps, and practising various food preservation techniques which would become important when she began keeping and preparing corpses. Most importantly, the more she reflected on the experience she'd gained ending the lives (and unlives) of her opponents in the fight, the more sure she was that she was ready to begin raising undead servants of her own. She was sure that she could manage the weakest three of the lesser dead: skeletons, zombies and ghuls, but defeating her master -the old and powerful necromancer- had been such a life changing experience, Aid was confident that she was ready to create a shadow.

Not that she would have a chance to try any practical necromancy while she was in a big city. Necromancy wasn't outright illegal so long as you didn't use human remains for your rituals, but it was certainly frowned on, and the officials of even a big city like Terinyo weren't above inciting a lynch mob to get rid of undesirables. Her visit here was strictly as a tourist, adventurer and consumer. She had her entire itinerary planned out, starting with a visit to a general store for fresh clothes, food and adventuring equipment, and then to an inn for a long awaited bath and rest in a real bed. Her own savings were non-existent, but the bag of gold coins she'd taken from her master was a hefty travelling fund, and would certainly see her for a few months even if she failed to make any money from adventuring.

Aid followed the weathered street signs towards the city centre, and there saw several general goods stores, each competing for the attention of whatever adventurers and wanderers still passed through the city. Shops universally had titles like Chaos Comestibles and Khelevaster's Bounty, all trying to evoke nostalgia for events that must, even to the inhabitants of Terinyo, be dry history by now. Aid picked a smallish and inoffensively decorated general store called Wyatt's Wares and walked through the door, setting a small bell hung over the entrance jangling.

"Hail traveller" said the burly, red-haired shopkeeper, looking up from a ledger briefly to greed Aid.

"Hail" she replied curtly. She had been sequestered in her master's tower for a long time, and aside from occasional conversations with delivery boys and tradesmen, she'd had little social experience outside of her relentlessly poisonous exchanges with Turias.

"Do you know what you're looking for miss?" he said.

"A new shirt, fresh underclothes, leather gloves, some high quality walking boots, bandages, soap and travelling provisions."

The shopkeeper, either because he had a professional attitude or because he was in a fatherly mood, helped Aid find and gather the things from her list, as well as a few other useful items he managed to up-sell her into purchasing, including a writing set (expensive) and a waterproof tent (useful, but heavy). After paying for her purchase with a fraction of the gold from her bag, Aid left, feeling more than a little burdened by the tent and rations.

As she made her way towards an inn the shopkeeper had recommended called The Lost Doggie (Aid wondered if the shopkeeper got kickbacks from such recommendations) she noticed the city's children tended to stop playing as she approached and scatter in fear. She felt a small knot of concern, but it was overwhelmed by grim amusement. She must have quite a frightening appearance to small children, her arcane-looking robe, with a skull staff strapped to her back, and a dagger and wand at her waist. So what if it was only a wand of webbing, and that she was about as dangerous with a dagger as one of the children would have been. She was a semi-powerful almost-necromancer, and they were right to be afraid. Aid resisted the urge to throw her head back and cackle as one knot of urchins scattered in front of her. Apart from trying to keep a low profile, she'd never properly cackled before, and wanted to try it in private first to make sure it didn't sound ridiculous.

When she reached the inn she found it to be a three story wooden building in a decrepit looking part of town. The exterior was well taken care of, but when she walked inside she found it dark and smoky, hardly worthy of an impartial recommendation. Aid walked through the sparsely peopled main room towards the counter, grimacing as the soles of her new boots stuck to the ale-speckled floor.

"Hail inkeep" Aid said formally, addressing the middle aged grey elf who was standing behind the bar, staring idly out at the room.

"Mornin' darling" the inkeeper replied, his voice somewhat high pitched but with a rough quality. His voice and appearance reminded her a little of her old master, which didn't make her feel any more comfortable.

"Miss Arwen" Aid replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry my lady. Verily, good morning, miss Ar-wen" the inkeep said, twirling his hand into an exaggerated bow.

Aid pressed her lips into a tight line. "You're a bit uncouth for an elf aren't you?" she asked.

"And you're a little up yourself for a _necro-mancer_" the elf replied, speaking the last word loudly and drawing it out, though none of the other patrons looked up.

"Oh hush will you" Aid said, looking around the room for eavesdroppers, then folding her arms over her black robe self-consciously when she failed to find anyone looking in her direction. "I just want hot meals, cold ale and a decent room to take them in for the next two days".

"Well, _miss_ Arwen, the master bedroom is always available this time of year, 200 copper a night, and we can feed you four hot meals a day for 80 more per day."

"That's... pretty reasonable" Aid said. "Book me in for two nights starting tonight, and send me up some lunch will you?"

"Of course, my _lady_", the inkeeper said the last word in a sickly sweet voice. He turned around and grabbed a key which he threw to her. "It's on the top floor, the door on the left of the landing. Don't go poking around the other door, that's my quarters" he finished.

"Thank you" Aid said curtly, catching the key and turning towards the wooden stairs. She climbed up three flights until she found a landing which had only two doors. Trying the key in the left hand door, she found it opened to a relatively large room, with a double bed in one corner, a wardrobe in another. A third corner, to the left of the door held a wash stand and a small round tub that served as a bath. The fourth corner had a minature wood burning stove. A small cauldron and a kettle sat on the floor next to the stove

Aid was relieved on the whole that the room seemed clean, dry and with only a faint odour of roasted chestnuts. The bed was bare, but folded sheets and a blanket were piled at the foot of it. Aid walked over to examine the linens and blankets, and found them clean and smelling faintly of soap and bleach. It seemed for all his rough manner, the innkeeper kept a tight ship.

Aid walked over to the room's only window, a small glass fitted and shuttered square set into the wall near the bed. She pushed the window open and looked out and up towards the sky.

"Spira!" she shouted, ignoring the glances she drew from the people milling around the street below. "Spiraaa!" she shouted again a minute later. Within a few seconds a large raven flapped down with a squawk, perching on the windowsill.

"Hello Spira" Aid said, smiling and brushing the raven's wing with the tip of her finger. "Did you see anything interesting?"

"Squawk!" the raven said, more because it was enjoying the attention than because it wanted to respond to the question.

"We'll be staying here for a few days, pet. You can come and go as you please" Aid said, stroking the bird.

The raven stayed quiet, and just looked at her.

Turning away from the window Aid unbuckled the belt holding her wand and dagger, dropped the staff and strap that held it to her back, and pulled off her robe. She hung the robe over the foot of the bed, then stripped out of her shirt and leggings. When she was down to just her under shirt and loincloth she picked up the cauldron, filled it with water from the wash stand and placed it on the stove. She opened the iron door of the stove and found it already loaded with wood and a little kindling, she lit it and closed the door, the faint sound of crackling coming through the draught.

A few minutes later Aid had finished laying out her newly bought clothes on the bed, locked the door, stripped off the last of her clothes and was washing herself with soap and warm water from the cauldron. It wasn't the bath she'd been hoping for, but it would do for now, and maybe she'd be able to have the inn staff make her one up tomorrow. She didn't have much planned over the next few days except rest, relax and try to gather rumours about likely places to find adventure.

* * *

><p>"Tom, I've found it".<p>

"Jane? What have you found". Toms voice was slow and he spoke a dull almost monotone drone. Barely raising his tone at all to indicate the question.

"Your cave".

Tom's omni-shears disappeared as he stood up straight and faced Jane, who was leaning over the wire fence that surrounded his small vegetable garden. He was an ageing man of about sixty, with a high widows peak and white hair that hung down to his shoulders. His hair was currently tied back in a knot at the bottom of his neck, and until Jane interrupted, he had been killing weeds with an omni-tool attached to his one remaining arm. His overalls were still speckled with the green-blue sap of the native plant life.

"Jane, did you really find the cave?"

"Yep" she grinned, putting her hands on the fence and using it as leverage to bounce up and down on the ground.

"Where was it child?" Tom said, his voice was rich and deep, not like her father's at all, Jane thought, she just wished he could be more expressive with it.

She dropped back to the ground and tapped her wrist, bringing up the map with her junior omni-tool, with the location of the cave showing as a glowing red spot, somewhere in the mountains north of the Nouveau Basel settlement.

"I got attacked by a mutated wolf up around there a few months ago. I looked around until I found a rock slide opening on a long tunnel, just like you said."

"You will get into trouble if your father finds out you've been up there, little one" Tom said.

"He basically knows" Jane said shiftily. "I told him that's where I found the wolf. He said he's glad I can take care of myself" she added with pride.

"We'll go up there" Tom said after thinking for a moment. "Do you want to go now?" he asked.

"Sure" Jane said. "I'm ready".

On closer inspection, Tom could see she was ready, she had a hard-case supply backpack, the type usually used by the colony prospecting teams when checking out out a mineral site, Tom had one of his own in his storage unit. She was also armed with some kind of pistol in a holster at her side, though the barrel looked strange.

"Let me have twenty minutes to pack" Tom said. "I'll meet you by the uten".

Aid grinned and walked around to the other side of Tom's house where he kept his uten – also known as the UT-10 Wombat drop shuttle. It used to be a military troop transport, capable of limited aerial hops within a planetary atmosphere, but the constant march of technological progress had left it behind and it had been resold into civillian use. Tom had bought it some years earlier, with the money he'd made from a small, but valuable eezo discovery on one of his prospecting trips.

A few minutes later Tom stepped out of the front door of his house wearing a backpack similar to Jane's on his back and some worn, scorched combat armour over a fresh set of clothes. In his right hand he carried a large, non-standard looking mass driver shotgun. He stepped into the vehicle, strapping his pack into a passenger chair as he seated himself in the pilot seat and jammed his shotgun into the space beside his chair. He seemed still pretty able-bodied for a man who had lost an arm, Jane reflected.

"I'm not really rated to fly this since the accident" Tom said. "But I won't tell if you don't".

Jane secured her own pack then strapped herself into another passenger seat, holding on tightly. Within a minute she heard the thrum of engines and felt the acceleration of the vehicle away from the ground. She felt her stomach lurch as the craft spun to face the North, then again when it jetted off towards the Northern mountain range.

At the speed they were going, travelling the 20 or so miles between Nouveau Basel and the location Jane had shown Tom only took ten minutes, instead of her usual 4 or 5 hour hike through the foothills and mountains. Tom picked a relatively flat area of rocky ground and put the uten down. The two unstrapped and disembarked, leaving their packs in the craft, but taking their weapons. Jane then led Tom around a rocky outcropping, following directions from her omni-tool until they reached the place where a rock slide had exposed a small tunnel.

"It's not how I remembered it" Tom said, walking up to the tunnel entrance. "This looks wider, and these scratches are tool marks. It looks like someone has been widening it. I had to crawl inside on my first visit."

"Maybe they're claw marks from that wolf?"

"No child, I think it was the aliens."

"I never really believed in the aliens" Jane said. "I believed you about the cave, but my parents were so sure there couldn't be humanoids".

"They were wrong" Tom said, matter-of-factly, shouldering his shotgun and stepping into the tunnel. Jane activated the light on her junior omni-tool and followed him in.

"It feels wrong" Tom said as they made their way down the tunnel. "It feels like we stepped into an evil place".

"Is that where you cut your way in?" Jane asked, indicating a small opening carved into the flat rock face at the deep end of the tunnel.

"Yes, my omni-tool picked up a cavern beyond just a metre of rock, so I cut my way through."

Tom ducked to pass through the opening, and Jane followed, readying her pistol. The plasma stun weapon designed by her mother hadn't done much against the wolf she'd fought weeks earlier, it had barely made it pause for a few seconds with each shot, but in the cramped environment of the tunnels she didn't have the manoeuvrability she needed to properly use the omni-blade built into her pistol.

As the pair stepped through the hole in the rock face, the cave opened out into a very artificial looking space, with right-angled rectangular corridors, and primitive mechanical wooden doors built into it at intervals, presumably opening onto corridors or rooms of their own.

"Who do you think built this place? The green aliens?" Jane asked.

"I don't know. The green skinned ones I saw did not look like builders. Maybe this planet once had intelligent life, and they carved these halls. I would believe that the green skinned ones were scavengers, they were all clad in misfit armour and had broken weapons."

There was space in the hall for Tom and Jane to walk side by side, and Jane had enough elbow room to feel safe switching to her sword. Tom had a shotgun after all, he could provide all the ranged firepower the two needed, but if they were jumped then she'd want some close range defence. She flipped the pistol around in her hand until she held the grip built around the barrel, then waved her finger through the activation area near the pistol's muzzle. There was an electronic buzz and an orange glowing longsword appeared from the barrel of the weapon. Jane swung it experimentally in a circular arc.

"That is a sweet toy" Tom said, eyeing the custom omni-blade.

"I killed a giant, mutated wolf with this _toy _tom" Jane said, a little defensively.

"I see, you must be a skilled fighter" he replied.

Jane kept her silence, unsure if he was patronising her or giving her a genuine compliment. The man's slow, almost monotone voice made it difficult to tell sometimes.

As the pair rounded the next corner in the tunnel, the light from their omni-tools caught something a few meters in front of them. It was a creature, but unlike anything either of them had seen before. It looked like a large, football sized eye, wrapped in a skin of angry pink flesh, with long tentacles reaching almost down to the ground. It almost looked like it was floating unsupported over a metre from the ground, but Jane dismissed that as impossible.

Tom uttered an "Ugh" in disgust, which was the last thing Jane heard before he raised his shotgun and started firing.


	5. Journeys 2-2 A

_I had to work last weekend so I'm a little behind. I'm splitting 2.2 into two chapters, released over the next couple of days._

* * *

><p><strong>Journeys 2.2 (A)<strong>

The eye creature flew backwards, propelled by the shotgun blasts Tom was unloading into it. The old man roared incoherently in a mixture of fear and disgust as he sent micrometer-sized steel gravel flying at the floating eye at several times the speed of sound. Tom had been a miner and prospector for his entire life. He'd never had military training, and while he'd been in some serious scuffles with various aliens over the years, he'd never come face to face with something as inexplicable as the floating eye. The expression on Tom's face was one of primal fear.

Jane was looking warily at the eye creature, and at Tom. She was worried about the old man. She was alarmed by the floating eye, but it looked like the Tom had become almost unhinged. He was firing recklessly at the eye, and he only slowed when the monstrous creature fell to the ground, apparently dead. It made a sickening wet noise as whatever had been keeping it in the air failed, bright pink blood seeping out from the corpse across the stone floor in slow rivulets. Even then, Tom fired a few final shotgun blasts into the body, making it jerk away from them on the floor.

The creature had been several meters away from the pair when it had come into the cones of light cast from their omni-tools, but the two had still managed to get speckled by the strange pink blood due to the violence of Tom's assault. Jane looked him over now, he was breathing heavily, staring at the corpse he'd just finished pulping with his shotgun as if he thought it might rise back up. The entire fight had probably lasted no more than ten seconds, though it felt longer to Jane, the adrenaline that flooded her body stretching her perception of time. She had done nothing except stand by with her omni-sword, not trusting Tom to stop firing if she decided to rush the creature for a melee attack, but staying on guard for anything coming up on them from behind.

"Tom.." Jane said uncertainly.

She slowly circled around him to enter his field of view – his eyes still fixed on the body of the creature. As she walked in front of him he broke his focus on the corpse and looked up at her sharply before sighing.

"Ugh.. What was that thing" he asked.

"I don't know, some kind of monster. It went down easily enough though" she said, approaching and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go" Tom said, jerking away from her and heading off in the direction of the hole they had climbed through to get into the corridor.

Jane felt a sudden, childish twinge of annoyance. Just because Tom had freaked out over one, probably non-sentient undocumented alien species didn't mean she was done. This 'cave' – more like an underground base, had been the subject of her daydreams for _years_. She was very reluctant to leave just as it was proving to be as exciting as anything she'd imagined.

"But, I want to stay!" she said petulantly.

Tom's expression grew steely and he grabbed Jane by the back of her shirt rougly.

"No child, we're leaving this place _now_". Tom's usually monotonous voice was becoming intense, and this more than anything convinced Jane that she wouldn't be able to argue.

Jane had just resigned herself to leave with Tom (and come back by herself later) when she heard a sound come from behind them, further down the dark corridor in the direction they had seen the floating eye. It was a combination of two sounds; gentle, soothing singing, and something that sounded like the flapping of wings. The sweet melodic song seemed to fill Jane's mind, inspiring visions of sandy beaches and feather beds. Her suddenly heavy eyelids were just closing when she was startled by Tom dropping to the ground, pulling her down with him by the tight grip he had on her shirt.

Fully awake now, Jane freed herself from Tom's grip and stood back up, holding her omni-sword to the side and looking into the darkness as the sounds of singing and flapping wings approached. She didn't have to wait more than a few seconds before a figure came into view. At first Jane thought it was a naked woman – it certainly had the head and torso of one, though it was ugly to the point of barely looking human. The wings however, were those of a vulture, and instead of legs the woman had long, large talons attached to the inverted legs of a bird. The creature's hands were talon-like claws, and she wore a necklace of bones around her neck. Incongruously, the winged woman was also the source of the soothing, beautiful song.

Jane considered running, but a quick glance at the ground put that thought from her mind. Tom was lying at her feet, apparently in a peaceful sleep. The woman had stopped her advance, and was just alternately standing and lifting herself into the air with her wings, as much as was possible in the cramped corridor. Jane could feel the song worming its way back into her mind, so she didn't waste any time, raising her omni-sword and charging the creature. The thought that the creature might be peaceful never entered her mind. It's actions and bearing had made her sure enough it was hostile.

As Jane got into range of the creature she swung her sword up in a clean arc, aiming to cut the bird woman's chest, but the creature had seen her approach and just used her wings to push herself back out of the way. The attack had forced the woman to stop singing and take her seriously though. Jane brought her omni-sword up just in time to parry a swipe from a claw-like hand, the mono-molecular edge of the nanoforged blade splitting the woman's hand in two from the momentum of its own attack, the severed half of the hand falling to the floor, accompanied by a bird-like screech from the creature - a stark contrast with the gentle song of before.

The bird woman was retreating slowly along the corridor now, clutching the wrist of her wounded hand as it dribbled black blood. Jane decided to try a final parting attack and lunged for her, pushing her omni-sword at the hideous woman's chest. The creature flapped its wings and it looked like it had flapped backwards far enough to escape the attack, but Jane used her free hand to wave a finger through a secondary activation panel, and the blade shimmered, being re-forged mid thrust into a much longer, narrower blade that pierced the centre of the bird woman's chest. The woman gave a cry and then collapsed to the ground. As she fell, the omni-sword - still held in Jane's firm grip - took the bird woman's weight and sliced effortlessly through her shoulder. The bird woman, now on the floor, was badly wounded but still clearly alive, trying to crawl away. Jane jumped forward, activating the panel again to bring her sword back to its standard configuration before swinging it down and cutting through the creature's neck. The head rolled.

Jane stood over the corpse for a few seconds, breathing heavily at the exertion and gagging with disgust at the wounds she'd inflicted on the woman-like creature. She didn't waste much time thinking about what she'd done, instead she turned back and walked to where Tom was lying insensate on the corridor floor. She deactivated the blade of her omni-sword, rotating the weapon in her hand so she could use it as a pistol again since she didn't want to risk cutting herself or Tom as she tried to wake the old man.

"Tom" Jane said, crouching down and shaking the man by his shoulder.

Tom gave no response, so Jane began shouting his name and slapping his chest and cheek with the palm of her hand.

"Uhh" he said finally, opening his eyes to look around groggily. "Jane? What happened?"

"There was a flying bird woman, she sang you to sleep" Jane said excitedly.

Tom's eyes went wide.

"Where is it?" he asked, looking around half panicked.

"Over there. I cut off her head" Jane said, gesturing down the same corridor with a vague wave of her pistol. " It was _awesome"._

"Come on" Tom said, getting up and pulling Jane along with him.

Jane allowed herself to be pulled, there was no way she wasn't coming back to this place.

After an uneventful half-walk half-jog back to the jagged hole in the corridor wall that they'd entered through, and a stumbling walk through the darkness of the cave tunnel, they emerged back into the rocky land north of the Nouveaux Basel settlement. When they passed back out into the daylight they were momentarily blinded, and Tom sat down with his back to the rocks.

As her eyes adjusted, Jane could see that the old man was shaking, his fingers white where they gripped his shotgun. She slumped to the ground next to him, pressing against his side in an attempt to comfort him without being too familiar.

"Do you think you'll be okay to drive the uten?" she asked.

The old man didn't look in much of a state to do anything, and she really didn't want to have to hike all the way back to the settlement with him.

"I just need some time to calm down" he said.

"Come and sit in the ship?" she said, taking his hand.

Tom stood up and let Jane guide him into the uten, sitting him in one of the passenger seats and pulling a flask from her hard-case pack.

"It's just coffee" she said.

Jane poured the still-hot liquid from the thermally sealed canister into the lid, which doubled as a cup, and handed it to Tom who held it shakily and took a small sip. Jane opened the main compartment of her pack and began taking out equipment. She had a small collection of high quality engineering equipment in there, some of it given as birthday presents, some of it built herself and some of it just pilfered from the stores of things her parents wouldn't miss. As Tom drank his coffee, Jane started piecing together a simple piece of technology. It was just a visual sensor connected to a transceiver, wrapped in an atmosphere film to keep the elements out and mounted to a sealant clip.

She programmed the sensor to send her an alert via the transceiver if it detected movement above a certain threshold, and with a glance at Tom she walked out of the uten and over to the cave mouth. It took a few seconds for the thermal sealant clip to activate against the rocky edge of the cave, but when it had finished the sensor-transmitter array was thermally and chemically sealed to the cave entrance, pointing further into the cave tunnel. Jane intended to come back, but she didn't want to have to worry about things from inside escaping to terrorize the other settlers. The settlement council might do something drastic like seal the cave if that were to happen.

Going back inside the uten, Jane found that Tom had recovered a little and had moved to the pilot's seat. His own pack was open in the passenger area, and he was taking sips from a small bottle of whiskey, which Jane eyed.

"Ready to go?" she asked uneasily.

"Yes" Tom said, a little shakily.

Tom sealed his bottle and started the uten's engines, slowly pushing the throttle up and sending the craft lurching into the sky.


	6. Journeys 2-2 B

**Journeys 2.2 (B)**

_To Pieket Lockspocket_

_Grandmaster I once again implore you to change the monetary policies of our guild. I must reiterate the financial unsustainability of our present monetary system. Under our current system a single gold piece is worth one hundred (100) silver pieces, and a single silver pieces is worth one hundred (100) copper pieces. A single gold coin weighs approximately 30 grammes, and a silver coin weighs a similar amount – around 30 grammes. I am sure that you are already familiar with these facts, but please again consider that the ratio between the value of their constituent metals not only does not match our traditional conversion rate, but also fluctuates according to supply and demand! For example, when I checked with the interregional merchant guilds this morning I found that 100 silver coins would be worth – by weight in silver alone – approximately 1g22s. The possibilities for abuse are obvious, and I believe the only reason we have not yet seen such abuse is due to the hitherto small, disconnected nature of our region's economy._

_Once again, grandmaster, I must respectfully urge you to pursue one of the adaptive measures I have outlined in my previous letters. Namely, alloying the metals that make up our coinage in order to maintain the balance between monetary conversion rate and metal value. Our populations are growing, and modern communication magics are connecting our economies in new and potentially disruptive ways. We can no longer rely on the lack of financial organisation in the general population to prevent these abuses. Please grandmaster, please consider carefully how history will remember your stewardship of our guild, I would hate you to be remembered as the gnome who broke the bankers guild._

_Yours imploringly,_

_Grieble Plonk, Gnomish Guild of Bankers, Treasurer  
>- <em>Letter to Pieket Lockspocket, grandmaster of the Gnomish Guild of Bankers

* * *

><p>Aid woke up as the first rays of the morning sun started glinting through the window of her room. She'd been conditioned into waking early by the harsh schedule her old master demanded, and the habit had stayed with her after she'd left the tower weeks earlier. Waking up early when you were outdoors, and had immediate physical needs was one thing, but waking up in a semi-luxurious bed, with no danger of attack or looming threat of starvation was much harder. She couldn't imagine maintaining her habit of early mornings for long in such a relaxed environment.<p>

Aid had gone to bed early, tired from the road, and eager to enjoy the rare luxury of a padded mattress under a dry roof. She didn't even take any precautions for her safety beyond locking her door and asking Spira to stay in the room with her, perched on the foot-board of the bed. As she stretched and wriggled her toes between the woollen sheets and blankets, Aid considered her plans for the day. Once the inn below her started to get busy – not that the half filled common room she saw yesterday gave her much hope that it _ever _got very full – she would go down and ask around for likely places to adventure.

Aid already knew about the headline dungeon of the area, the one which had made the Draklor chain famous all those decades ago, the Caverns of Chaos. An enormous network of dungeon levels, linked linearly downwards, dotted with shops, shrines, even some dwarven towns. Her main argument against travelling to the Caverns of Chaos was that over the last century a steady trickle of tourist-dungeoneers had ventured into the depths, and she reasoned that it must be mostly picked clean of treasure by now. She was sure that there were still some monsters and ne'er-do-wells hiding down there, there always was in any underground space, but she didn't deem it a very efficient use of her time. There was also a lingering malignance of chaos energy pervading the lower levels, and she had no desire to start sprouting tentacles or extra eyes. It was her hope that some of the locals would have some better ideas – more profitable places to explore.

Aid slipped her legs out of the bed, placing her feet lightly on the floor. She started missing the comfort of the bed as soon as she had climbed out of it. Somewhere below her in the inn there was probably a fire burning, but up here the morning chill had managed to seep in through the closed window and made goosebumps rise on her skin. Aid dressed quickly, stretching to squeeze the morning aches out of her body, but not beginning to feel warm again until she threw her black velvet robe over the top of her new clothes. She strapped her staff to her back, pushed her dagger and wand into her belt and shouldered her pack before leaving the room. She had requested that her meals be sent to her room, but after so many years of getting up with the sun, the thought of lying around and waiting for breakfast to come to her made her vaguely uncomfortable. Aid left Spira sitting on the foot-board of her bed. The lazy bird was still asleep, and Aid resolved to bring some lunch scraps up to feed her with later.

As she moved to unlock the door to her room, Aid looked down and noticed some unusual slips of paper scattered on the floor.

* * *

><p>"If what you told me is true, night spawn, then you will be further rewarded"<p>

"Who are you calling night spawn, you plucked monkey? You smell like shit and sweat under all that iron work."

The tall human cast his eyes around the dingy room. As he turned, the jangling of oiled chain mail could be heard, but faintly, muted by the heavy leather greatcoat he wore. After inspecting the room he lunged forward without warning, grabbing the slimy elf by the shirt.

"Listen, _dark _elf. I came here to drink ale, and destroy dark-kind, and my tankard runs empty" the human said, upturning his empty cup upside down on the bar with his free hand.

"_Right_, well I'll just get you a refill shall I?" the elf replied in a rough, nasal voice.

The armoured man let the dark elf go and leant back on his stool.

The elf took the human's pewter tankard away and began filling it from the keg of ale below the bar.

* * *

><p>Aid realised that someone had slipped several leaflets under the door during the night. One read "Wyatt's Wares" in an elaborate font, and had various vacuous marketing slogans beneath it. Aid threw it into the corner of the room. The second pamphlet said "Eternal Elixirs", with a print carving of a potion bottle on the front and a stock list on the back. Aid eyed the stock list approvingly, they had a varied selection, and Aid still had plenty of of her ex-master's money. She reasoned an extra potion of healing or two couldn't hurt and resolved to visit.<p>

She left her room, locking it behind her and descending the stairs. The inn's common room wasn't _completely_ empty, there were a few patrons sitting at tables with cups of ale or coffee and cooked breakfasts. The innkeeper was behind the bar polishing pewter cups and a large figure in a leather coat sat at the bar nursing a tankard of ale.

"Hail innkeep" Aid said cheerfully.

"Good morning my lady" the innkeeper mewled.

"Oh knock it off will you?" Aid said.

"I can't imagine what you're talking about, miss Arwen" the innkeeper said.

"That sickening deferential voice" she said.

The dark elf gave a laugh, before his eyes strayed to the man at the bar and he became serious again.

"Breakfast is it?" he asked Aid.

"Yes please".

Aid ordered a simple breakfast of roast chicken, bread, jam and coffee. The unusual assortment had become something of a daydream during the few weeks Aid had been living in the wilderness and subsisting on dried beef and foraged roots.

"Hail traveller" Aid said to the leather coated man to her right at the bar, but he made no reply, instead downing the last of his ale, getting up and leaving through the door to the street.

"Why is everyone around here so rude?" Aid asked nobody in particular, but the innkeeper replied.

"I'm rude to everyone ape-let, it's part of the charm" he said, raising his hands slightly as if to gesture to the inn around him.

"And besides" he continued, "who's the rude one? You came in here yesterday bold as brass, calling me innkeep like a common servant!"

Aid was silent for a moment, feeling slightly chagrined.

"Sorry" she said. "You're right. What's your name?"

"Well, it's Innkeep as it happens. Laiarard Inkeep. Took the name when I moved here and bought this place, since humans never could pronounce my real family name" the dark elf said.

Aid struggled to suppress a smile.

"Well, you have my apologies, Innkeep" she said.

"Meh don't mention it. Really don't, it's kind of embarrassing" the elf said.

After a few minutes of unmarked silence, during which Aid drank her coffee and re-read the stock list on the back of the potions pamphlet, her breakfast arrived on a glazed clay plate. Roast chicken and bread, with a pot of jam on the side just as she'd asked. She ate it quickly, and after confirming the cost would be put on her tab, she left to find Eternal Elixirs.

* * *

><p>"Ah Borin! What news have you for me this morning?" The wizened priest asked the man in the leather greatcoat.<p>

Inside a large and ornately decorated temple to Lugh – the human god of law, Borin stood before the ancient priest, master of his order. The morning light filtered through the intricate stained glass windows on the east side of the temple, illuminating dust motes which swam through the warming air.

"I've found another servant of evil, Meister. It walks the streets of this very city."

"In broad daylight!?" the old man asked, incredulous.

"Yes Meister. It feels like the dark-kind are growing bolder every day" Borin sighed. "No doubt a result of their manipulation of the city council, letting them practice their craft legally."

"Have no fear, child Borin. We serve a greater law, one which can not be corrupted" the priest said.

Borin's greatcoat hood was pulled back, revealing him to be a square-jawed man of about thirty with enough facial scars and stubble to prove his age, but he would still carry the title of 'child' for as long as he served as his deity's instrument, as all of his profession were children in the eyes of their god.

"Yes, Meister" Borin said.

"Have you a plan to deal with it? The dark-kind is unlikely to be willing or able to use its foul servants within the city walls, but by attacking it here you run the risk of bringing innocents into the conflict. You could wait until it leaves, but then you risk the creature bringing its full power to bear against you" the old man said.

"I will destroy it while it is still in the city. This dark-kind is young, I don't expect it to even last long enough for the purge to become a fight" Borin said, nonchalantly.

"Very well, you have my blessing to begin a purge. May you walk always in the light, child Borin."

"Always in the light" Borin echoed. The tall man knelt briefly before the priest, before turning and leaving the temple.

* * *

><p>Aid walked slowly down the isles of the large potion shop. It was a little bit more modern than she had expected. Wyatt's Wares had been dusty, wooden, every bit what she imagined when she thought of an adventurer's emporium. Eternal Elixirs was bright and airy, the floor was paved in smooth stone tiles, the shelves were white painted wood set into metal stands, and the potions were arrayed on them neatly, and very minimally, with large gaps between each potion.<p>

Each flask was individually labelled. Aid sought out the restorative section and found several potions of healing close together. She picked two of them up and put them in her pack. She had plenty of money left, but potions were among some of the more expensive items an adventurer was expected to procure for their expeditions. A potion of healing alone would set her back 10 gold, as much as a quarter of what she had left after inn charges and yesterday's shopping spree. She had a quick glance at the potions of exchange, and her jaw dropped when she saw that they cost two hundred gold pieces each – a sizeable fortune. She had tried to brew one herself several times during her tuition, but had never succeeded, her master however used to brew them fairly often. Aid wondered just how much money must be stashed away in the old corpse's vault.

Aid also picked up a potion of Boost Appearance (because they were fairly cheap at 40 silver, and well, why not?), a much more expensive potion of invisibility to be kept as a last resort emergency escape, and a potion of Raw Chaos so cheap she half thought it must be cursed. Potions of Raw Chaos were a local speciality, brewed by exposing certain alchemical reagents to the chaotic energy that still lingered in the Caverns of Chaos. You wouldn't want to drink it – doing so would cause horrible corruptions (though some maniacs did so for the corrupted power they sometimes obtained), the main use of a potion of raw chaos was that dipping an item into it would transform it into another item of the same class. In this way, it was kind of like a poor man's potion of exchange, but generally less favourable as it could _only_ be used for item transformation, was generally dangerous to carry, and dipping an item very occasionally resulted in a highly corrupting explosion.

Aid took her potions to the counter, pausing on impulse to pick up a leather bandolier. It was covered in thin, hard leather tubes in which potion vials could be slotted, as well as lined with small pouches for rings and things. She paid for her purchases, and left the store with her coin purse considerably lighter. She had one more task to do before she left the city, return to the inn and ask around for good locations to find adventure.

* * *

><p>Borin sat on a bench in the courtyard outside The Lost Doggie, overhead a small tree gave shade, and several small birds sang in its branches. In his right hand was a light crossbow, fitted with a blessed silver bolt. The weapon was hidden from casual sight, covered in a flap of the leather greatcoat Borin always wore, but that made it no less dangerous. Borin sat quietly, idly enjoying the late morning atmosphere and birdsong that flitted through the courtyard. The streets were fairly quiet in this untravelled part of the city, only the odd goodwife and street urchin out about their business.<p>

Borin had picked this location for his ambush for two reasons. One, because it _was _fairly remote, while still well within range of the nearest guard station. This would minimise the risk of civilians being injured, and also meant that there would be a fast response from the city watch if the dark-kind tried anything blatantly illegal, like summoning an undead abomination or demon in broad daylight – not that Borin expected his simple ambush to descend into a fight at all. One unarmoured dark-kind, one blessed silver bolt to the heart, one successful purge. And secondly, because it was the only place in the entire city that he _knew_ the black-haired, black-robed dark-kind would return to. He noticed she carried most of her possessions around with her in her backpack – a precaution that made it easier to flee should justice ever catch up with her, he reasoned, but he had seen her pet bird – if it indeed was anything as mundane as a mortal bird – fly into her room the previous night, and it had not yet emerged. Borin tapped his feet lightly as he waited.

He hadn't been waiting much longer than half an hour when he saw the pale girl round a corner into the courtyard, walking leisurely towards the inn's entrance. He sat patiently still, head now hooded, and the browns of his coat blending into what dingy light made it through the foliage of the small tree overshadowing his bench.

As the girl walked passed and turned her back to him to approach the inn's door he raised the crossbow, aimed it directly at her heart, and fired. As the bolt left the crossbow the girl suddenly dived to her left, the bolt just barely clipping her arm. Borin could see blood stains on the stone of the courtyard, but it was only a glancing blow. Borin swore, this had become slightly more complicated.

As Borin pulled back the stock of the crossbow to fit another bolt the girl pulled herself up to a standing position and whirled to face him. She extended her arm and Borin tried to scrabble behind the tree that stood next to the bench, attempting to avoid whatever dread spell the dark-kind was about to launch. A white beam flared in the air and caught him in the side, filling his body with a terrible coldness and forcing him to fall to his side. He couldn't move his left arm, but somewhere in the movement between the bench and the tree he'd managed to get the crossbow cocked. He slipped another bolt out of his coat and into the crossbow, raised it in his right hand and pointed at the girl's heart. Before the strength in his arm could give out, he fired.

Borin watched in dismay as his shot went low. The crossbow had felt heavy in his hand, and his body was weak from the frost damage the dark-kind had inflicted on him. The bolt which was meant to be a killing heart shot now only protruded from the girl's stomach. As he watched, too weak to try and load another bolt, the girl pulled the missile from her stomach with a scream and then, collapsing to the ground in pain, pulled a potion from the leather strap around her chest and put it to her lips. Within seconds of drinking the potion she was on her feet again as if he'd never hit her at all. With dread he saw the dark-kind raise her hand to point at him once again, and he braced himself for the next spell.

"Oh Lugh" Borin whispered, casting his eyes to the sky, "I humbly request your favour".

Borin saw a white beam fly at him from the girl's hand moments before he was surrounded by a warm, comforting light and a sonorous voice echoed through his mind.

"Hark, mortal. To your eyes my light revealed, though you war against the night, stand before me, righteous knight, your wounds are healed!"

Borin felt invigorated, the pain in his side was gone and his strength had returned. Casting the crossbow aside he pulled a silver mace free of his belt beneath the greatcoat. He thought he heard a dumbfounded 'That's cheating!' before he leapt at the shocked girl.

* * *

><p>Aid was walking back to the inn, she was happy, though she refused to let it show on her face. She had just one more task to do, and not a particularly strenuous one. Later she would arrange a bath, then sleep in a bed, and feed Spira scraps, and then set off on an adventure. As Aid walked into the courtyard that bordered the inn she felt strangely anxious, and as she rounded the corner and headed for the inn's entrance the as yet unidentified ring she had taken from Turias' body pulsed hot on her finger.<p>

_Ring of warning. Interesting._ Aid thought._ Ring of warning!_ Aid threw herself to the ground. As she fell, she felt something sharp graze her shoulder. Aid climbed to her feet and whirled to face her attacker, noting with surprise that it was the large greatcoated man from the inn earlier. Could he be a mugger? An assassin? Aid raised her hand and fired a frost bolt at him which caught him in the side and knocked him to the ground. The man raised his crossbow in a last act of defiance and fired at her. Aid tried to dodge, but his movement had been too fast, and she felt a searing agony bloom in her stomach.

Aid looked down and saw a crossbow bolt sticking out of her just below her ribs. Shock was settling in, and the pain was intense, but she still realised she'd have to pull the bolt out before drinking a potion of healing, otherwise she'd only suffer more wounds later as she pulled the bolt free of healed flesh. It took all of her not inconsiderable will to force her hand to yank the bolt out, and the resulting wave of pain knocked her to the ground, almost making her pass out. Seeing the world through a foggy haze of nausea and pain, Aid pulled a potion of healing from her bandolier and put it to her lips. After quaffing the potion she immediately started feeling better, as the wound in her stomach as well as the almost forgotten cut in her shoulder quickly knitted closed.

Standing up again, Aid saw that her attacker was in a bad state. He was lying on the ground, trembling and clutching his side. It would only take one or two more frost bolts to finish him off. She raised her hand to cast the final spells when the man's eyes rolled up in his head, and his lips moved slightly. As she cast the spell, Aid saw the man on the ground become bathed in a strange golden light. The light increased in intensity until it became painful to look at, and moments after it faded she saw her previously almost dead attacker not only standing, but leaping at her with a mace in hand.

"That's cheating!" Aid said to herself.

Borin swung his mace at the girl's head, but she dodged backwards.

"The last one of your kind I put down wasn't so adept at dodging attacks" he told her mockingly.

"The last one of _your_ kind that _I _put down died screaming" Aid bluffed in return, drawing her dagger.

"Your habitual slaughter of the servants of light doesn't surprise me, wretch" Borin said.

Aid was circling around her attacker as she spoke, the stilted conversation an attempt to buy herself time. She couldn't match the large, armed and apparently armoured man in melee combat, but she didn't trust that he would give her time to cast a spell. For his part, Boris was also trying to buy time, he was on the look out for an opening he could use to attack the slippery night-spawn. He was content to taunt her, knowing that while ever she was talking, she wasn't muttering an incantation, and with luck he'd be able to make her lose her temper and attack.

"Servants of light? You're a paladin" Aid said, the realisation clicking. He was a lawfully aligned paladin, she was a necromancer and had been recognised as such. The man must have been shadowing her since she checked in at the inn.

"Correct, _necromancer_" Borin said, spitting the last word like a curse.

"You know my practice is legal here don't you? It's funny, how does a lawful paladin end up breaking the law and attacking a law abiding citizen?" Aid said.

In place of a reply Borin swung his mace at Aid's shoulder, but she turned and the attack missed, barely.

"How will it feel after I kill you, and bring you back as a ghul? Will your god still listen to your prayers?" Aid said mockingly.

Borin gave an incoherent roar and lunged at her, attacking her in a wild two handed swing. Aid dodged the worst of the attack, only taking a glancing blow to her raised left arm as she side stepped around him. Borin however was unbalanced from the savage attack and staggered forward a step in the direction Aid had been standing. Aid took advantage of her moment's respite by drawing the wand from her belt and firing full into the side of the paladin's head.

Long, strong strands of web shot out of the wand, wrapping themselves around the paladin and gluing him to the floor. As she watched, breathing heavily Aid saw the man manage to free one arm, but he was making little progress against the tangle of sticky cords. Aid thought for a moment, then took a deep breath before shouting.

"Guards! Guards!" Aid called, and kept calling. She really was blameless in all this. As far as the letter of the law was concerned she was an innocent law abiding traveller, potentially not even a necromancer. As far as anyone here knew she might just be a wizard with a penchant for dark clothes and skull-handled weapons, and a pet raven. The paladin on the other hand was a light-blinded religious zealot, attacking someone based on nothing more than their fashion choices, for no reason other than he was commanded to by his religious dogma.

When the guards arrived only a minute later this was exactly the angle she took when explaining the situation. The man, who she learned was a local paladin of good repute called Borin, shouted his protests from within the mound of webs, but was ultimately ignored by the guards who's standing policy was to encourage tourism and discourage old ideological conflicts. The guards used their short swords to unbind Borin, and he went peacefully with them, though not without a few withering glares at Aid. She suspected that because of his station and connections he would get off with a warning, but probably not before she left town.

Aid strode into the bar, rubbing her aching arm but flushed from what she felt was her most recent victory. She walked up to the bar where Laiarard the innkeeper was looking at her with an odd mixture of fear and surprise.

"Four pints of your hardest liquor, Innkeep" she said.

Laiarard looked blankly at her for a moment before sputtering.

"Pints!?"

Aid simply nodded sagely and Laiarard moved away to see to the order, muttering to himself. When he came back he was carrying four pint-sized pewter mugs of rum, which he set down on the bar in front of her.

"That's 50 copper for that. It's sweetpod rum, straight from Roomcarnage. Technically illegal, but we won't tell anyone eh? Oh, and if you end up making a mess I'll charge you extra."

Aid pulled the mugs closer to herself, then brought out her wand of webbing, dipping it carefully into the cups. As the wand entered each mug it glowed faintly blue, until the deep amber liquid turned clear and the glowing stopped. She repeated the process for each cup of rum in front of her before sliding a silver piece across the bar.

"Keep the change" she said. "And bring me lunch?"

"Sure thing miss" the innkeeper said, hurrying away.

"And have a bath made up for me?" she shouted after him, smiling.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Given Name:<strong>__ Aid Arwen  
><em>_**Reported Profession:**__ Wizard  
><em>_**Given Destination:**__ Infinite Dungeon (ID)  
><em>_**Armour: **__One black velvet robe, silver rune inscriptions. One leather girdle, mundane. One leather potions bandolier. One poor quality black robe, unworn.  
><em>_**Weapons:**__ One skull handled dagger, mundane. One skull staff of slaughtering. One wand of webbing, 8 charges. One light crossbow. Thirty silver crossbow bolts, blessed.  
><em>_**Rings:**__ One ring of regeneration. One ring of conflict. One ring of warning, worn.  
><em>_**Potions:**__ Two potions of exchange. One potion of extra healing. One potion of healing. One potion of boost appearance. One potion of raw chaos. One potion of invisibility, blessed.  
><em>_**Scrolls: **__One scroll of identify. One scroll of greater identify. One scroll of enchant armour.  
><em>_**Notes: **__  
>Traveller on her way to the infinite dungeon. No contraband to speak of. She reported being attacked by a 'religious maniac' during her stay, but said she wasn't going to file charges. She seemed nervous when we were inspecting her packed clothes but nothing turned up. We did find a couple of bottles of sweetpod rum, but we gave her a pass on those.<br>_- Terinyo outbound customs report for 'Aid Arwen'.


End file.
